This book systematically discusses state-of-the-art dew-point evaporative cooling and provides key insights into current research efforts and future research interests. Novel energy-efficient and environment-friendly cooling technologies are essential to reduce the sharply rising energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality. Conventional air-conditioners which adopt a vapor compression cycle are neither energy-efficient nor sustainable due to the use of compressors and chemical refrigerants, as well as their intrinsic coupling of sensible and latent cooling loads. With the merits of high energy efficiency and the ability to decouple cooling loads without using chemical refrigerants, indirect dew-point evaporative cooling provides an ideal alternative solution to air conditioning in a variety of applications.
A comprehensive review of evaporative cooling and their underlying engineering challenges is included. Advanced engineering andmodeling experience critical to the development of dew-point evaporative coolers are highlighted. The effective analysis techniques for dew-point evaporative coolers are documented, and their intrinsic characteristics captured by these methods are reported. Lastly, advanced dew-point evaporative cooling systems in various energy-connected applications are discussed by providing multiple case studies.
Specifically targeted at HVAC engineers, thermal scientists, and energy-engineering researchers, this book will balance fundamental concepts, industrial applications, and leading-edge research. As this book provides readers with depth and breadth of coverage, it can also be used by graduate-level students in relevant fields.
Dr. Jie Lin is a lecturer at School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast. With a PhD dissertation in decoupled latent and sensible cooling, he has been conducting research on dew-point evaporative cooling, membrane-based dehumidification and thermal management, and extending his interests to battery energy storage such as characterization, diagnostics and modeling. He has developed significant expertise in design, model, fabrication, characterization and test of many sustainable energy devices and systems for energy conversion and storage, air conditioning, and thermal management. He has published 28 international top journals articles, including in leading journals in the field, such as Communications Engineering, Small, Energy Conversion and Management, and Applied Energy, with a current 672 citations since 2016 and 15 h-index. He has successfully been awarded the “Futures Early Career Award” twice by UK Science and Technology Facilities Council and the“Innovation/Entrepreneurship Practicum Award” by National University of Singapore. He has also served as a Guest Editor for several reputable journals in MDPI.
Dr. Kian Jon Chua is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore. He has been conducting research on renewable energy systems and heat recovery systems since 1997. He has conducted both modelling and experimental works for specific thermal energy systems including thermal desalination. He is highly skilled in designing; fabricating; commissioning and testing many sustainable energy systems to provide for heating, cooling and humidity control for both small and large scale applications. He has more than 200 international peer-reviewed journal publications, 6 book chapters and two recent monographs on advances in air conditioning. He has been elected to several fellowships including Fellow of Royal Society, Fellow of Energy Institute and Fellow of IMechE. He was highlighted among the top 1% of scientists in the world by the Universal Scientific Education and Research Network and top 2% of energy researchers in the Stanford list of energy researchers. His works has garnered more than 12,800 over citations with a current h-index of 60. He is the Associate Editor of several reputable journals in Elsevier, Wiley, and Taylor & Francis. He is on the editorial boards of numerous journals in Elsevier, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and MDPI. Further, he owns more than 10 patents related to several innovative cooling and dehumidification systems. On a regular basis, he has been invited to deliver many plenary and keynote talks on his research findings. He is the Principal Investigator of several multi-million competitive research grants. Additionally, he has been awarded multiple local, regional, and international awards for his breakthrough research endeavors.
