액체식 제습냉방 시스템의 세균 및 곰팡이 저감 효과에 대한 실험적 연구

초록

In this study, the microbial contaminants (i.e., bacteria and fungi) inactivation performance of a heat-pump-driven liquid-desiccant (HPLD) air-conditioning system was experimentally analyzed for both summer and winter operation modes. In the summer, a solution-side evaporator of the heat-pump cools the liquid-desiccant solution to dehumidify the process air passing through the liquid-desiccant (LD) unit, and then the dried air is sensible cooled by an auxiliary evaporator of the heat-pump. In the winter, the process air is heated and humidified by reversing both the refrigerant cycle of the heat-pump unit and the solution cycle of the LD unit. The results revealed that the fungi were less inactivated than the bacteria because fungi have multicellular structures which are not easily inactivated. Owing to the higher liquid-to-gas ration and solution temperature, the bacteria inactivation efficiency was improved by 27 % for the winter than summer mode. By contrast, because the fungi might have well grown in the heated and humidified supply-air in the winter, the fungi inactivation efficiency was improved by only 1.5 % for the winter than summer mode despite of the higher liquid-to-gas ratio and solution temperature.