Alternatives to Compressor Cooling in Residences

Sustainable cooling alternatives for buildings

“…Roof Cooling System: The technique, also referred as the night sky roof-spray system (Rumsey Engineers, 2001) or a night sky radiation system with a roof-spray, comprise water sprayed above and onto a pond located on the roof of a building. The roof-pond water is cooled by means of night sky radiation (Feustel et al 1992) while the roof-spray water is primarily cooled through convection and evaporation. During diurnal hours heat gain to the building through the roof is lowered by means of the roof-spray and roof-1-3 pond system while these systems produce cool water during nocturnal hours.…”

“…Desiccant Adsorption Cooling: Adsorption cooling involves a thermo-chemical process of sorption (adsorption) whereby a liquid or gaseous substance is absorbed by a material such as silica gel when heat is added. The concept of adsorption cooling is to dry outside air by means of adsorption before evaporatively cooling the air entering the building (Feustel et al 1992). The cooling effect of evaporative cooling depends largely on the moisture levels of the air being cooled.…”

“…The roof cooling system comprises two major components namely the roof-pond and the roof-spray. The concept of a roof-spray and roof-pond system has been reported as an effective method of reducing the solar heat gain in industrial and commercial buildings (Feustel et al 1992). The first roof-spray system was introduced in Washington, D.C. in 1934 where an irrigation engineer designed and installed a roof-spray system on the roof of a three story apartment building to reduce heat loads in summer months (Abernethy, 1984).…”

A Desiccant Dehumidifier for Electric Vehicle Heating

“…Desiccant dehumidifiers have been studied in the past mainly as a method for providing heat-assisted air conditioning (Nimmo et al, 1993;Zheng et al, 1993). Some advantages of desiccant systems are: control of the humidity of air independently of its temperature; operation free of CFCs; elimination of high humidity conditions, which cause air quality problems and damage to materials; stability over many cycles; and benign environmental characteristics (Mei et al, 1992;Feustel et al, 1992).…”

Phase change materials for passive cooling of buildings in tropics

“…The advantages of PCMs as a heat storage media are two-fold. The heat capacity of PCM is order-of-magnitude higher than normal building material while the melting and freezing cycles are almost isothermal (Feustel, de Almeida et al 1992). PCMs have been successfully incorporated into wall materials such as gypsum wallboard, plaster and concrete to enhance the thermal energy storage capacity of buildings with particular interest in cooling load reduction and peak load shifting.…”