IEA Solar Heating and Cooling Programm - NachhaltigWirtschaften.at

IEA SHC Task 38 Solar Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Subtask C1 Report, 31 October 2010
4.6 Commercial products suppliers
• Kathabar (USA): Packed bed (Raschig rings)
Kathabar Systems has manufactured desiccant dehumidification equipment for over 70
years. This company provides a wide range of dehumidifiers and regenerators. A total of
14 different size conditioners is available, each capable of handling either horizontal or
vertical air flow arrangements. The smallest in the series is designed to handle airflows
from 1274 to 2548 m3/h, the largest from 71,358 to 142,716 m3/h. Kathabar offers a total
of eight different size regenerators which are matched with the conditioners required for a
given installation, Figure 28.
Figure 28: A commercially available packed bed liquid desiccant dehumidifier (Kathabar,
2007) [121].
• AIL Research: provide commercially liquid desiccant dehumidifiers and regenerators
that are based on parallel-plate liquid-to-air heat exchanger. The dehumidifier is
capable of handling airflows from 3398 to 10194 m3/h, Figure 29.
Figure 29: Rooftop Liquid-Desiccant Air Conditioner (left), schematic of an AIL Research
Liquid Desiccant dehumidifier. Source: Lowenstein et al. [122].
• Liquid-Desiccant Air Conditioner Menerga (Germany): New air handling unit using
liquid sorption, dehumidifier in combination with a standard indirect evaporator cooler.
Four pilot plants are currently in operation, one is operated using solar thermal
energy (Freiburg, Germany), Figure 30.
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