Evaporative mist cooling as heat dissipation technique: Experimental assessment and modelling

Abstract

The severity of extreme weather conditions brought on by climate change are conditioning quality of life, economic development, and well-being in today's cities. Conventional measures have been shown to be insufficient for tackling climate change and must be supplemented with ecofriendly approaches. Hence, the scientific community's endeavor to develop natural cooling techniques that lower energy consumption while delivering satisfactory comfort levels. For its simplicity and low cost, evaporative cooling has gained in popularity in recent years. The substantial cooling power to be drawn from evaporative mist cooling, makes it an attractive alternative to conventional systems. Research conducted to date on the technique has focused on producing cold air, whilst cooling the water involved has been neither assessed nor experimentally validated. No readily applicable simplified model for the system able to use operating parameters as input variables has been defined either. The present study consequently aimed to experimentally assess the cooling power of the evaporation of sprayed water and experimentally validate a simplified model to assess and design such systems. The findings confirmed the cooling power of the technique, with declines in water temperature of up to 6 °C, and with it the promise afforded by this natural air conditioning method. Finally, simplified model developed allows to evaluate this technique like a conventional system for producing fresh water.