Performance evaluation of a direct evaporative cooling system with hollow fiber-based heat exchanger

Direct evaporative cooling systems usually involve the process of spraying water, which may form the drift of water droplets. In addition, the use of circulating water can also lead to the growth of bacteria and molding on the surface of the packing material, affecting the indoor air quality. To address these issues, this paper intends to propose an evaporative cooling method incorporated with hollow fiber membranes. The selective permeation membrane technology allows the membrane module to isolate air from water, which selectively allows only water vapor to pass through, preventing the droplets from entraining bacteria into the air. A mathematical model has been developed to theoretically investigate the heat and moisture transfer between water and air in a hollow fiber membrane-based evaporative cooling module. The governing equations for the pre-cooling IEHX were established and then solved by employing the COMSOL Multiphysics platform. This study validated the model by comparing its outlet air dry bulb temperature and relative humidity against experimental data acquired from literature sources. The numerical model showed good agreement with the experimental findings with maximum discrepancy of 7.0%. The validated model was employed to investigate the influences of the inlet air velocity, inlet air dry-bulb temperature, inlet air relative humidity and geometric parameters on the cooling effect of the evaporative cooling module. Simulation results indicated that the outlet air temperature is greatly affected by the relative humidity of the inlet air under constant inlet air temperature conditions. A higher inlet air relative humidity will result in a higher outlet air dry bulb temperature. In addition, the cooling effectiveness was reduced for a higher inlet air velocity. The design of the hollow fiber membrane-based evaporative cooling module was optimized based on the simulation study.