Water Cooled Residential Air Conditioners

Squeezing Humidity Out of the Air

A central air-conditioning system made by Advantix Systems , formerly an Israeli company but now based in Miami, removes moisture from air and cools it with a mixture that is 60 percent water and 40 percent salt. Humid air is pumped past the salty mixture and water from the air tends to flow into the salt.

If the salt is chilled, the air will be cooled, too. A diagram explaining the system is here .

Finding a separate way to remove the humidity is important, said Hannah Choi Granade, president of the company’s American subsidiary, because conventional air-conditioners have only one way to squeeze the humidity out of the air that they cool: by chilling the air to a low enough temperature that it reaches the dew point and the water drains out. If it gets cold enough, the humidity will condense on hard surfaces, like beads of water accumulating on the outside of a glass of iced tea.

But to do that, a conventional air-conditioner may have to chill the room air to 52 degrees or even lower. That can make the air too cold to use directly, so some systems have to reheat it before introducing it into the room being air-conditioned.

Yet if the air can be dried out directly, it need not be overcooled and then reheated, according to advocates of these “desiccant” systems.

Humidity can worsen in office buildings that install efficient lighting, window tinting to screen out the sun or computers that use less electricity. All those steps reduce the accumulation of heat so that the air-conditioning does not need to run as much.

But if the humid air does not pass through the air-conditioning equipment often enough, the temperature in the room will hit the desired level before the humidity is removed, and the air-conditioner will shut off. And when outdoor air on a muggy August afternoon is lowered to a temperate 72 degrees, the result is very high relative humidity, possibly followed by mold and mildew.

A system at Advantix’s Miami headquarters works well in removing humidity, Ms. Granade said. The cooling system would work in a dry place like Las Vegas, too, but would not yield energy savings, she added. In fact, Ms. Granade said, her product does not get an Energy Star rating because the government’s rating system does not take humidity into account.

Desiccant air-conditioning systems have been around for a while; usually they rely on a solid material that absorbs moisture and is mounted on a big wheel that rotates through the path of the air being treated. When the wheel passes out of that pathway, the solid material is heated to drive off the moisture so the solid is ready for another pass.

A/C Mist Device Cools Down Air Conditioners, Utility Bills

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) July 6, 2010

An engineer goes for a jog during a typically-brutal Texas summer and uses his water hose to cool off. Some water splashes on his home's air conditioning unit, and an idea for a mist product that could save consumers and businesses on their A/C costs rises from the scorching heat. Thus was born Mist Ecology's AC Spritzer, and the latest segment of spark360's "Social Business Television" has all the cool details of how the device uses water mist to make air conditioners more efficient.

The profile, now available for viewing on http://www.spark360.tv, also shows how Mist Ecology and its parent company represent a new entrepreneurial business model for a talented team of engineers who can take ideas that solve everyday problems and quickly turn them into start-up companies.

"We have over 400 engineers in our company, and engineers also have good ideas," said Roger Burns, Mist Ecology president who also serves as chief financial officer for Mist parent company Halff Associates. "We thought it was a good opportunity to take advantage of some of those ideas. Tim Jensen came up with this idea and that spurred us to create an organization, a subsidiary, Halff Research and Development, that would help incubate other good ideas."

Jensen's idea, sparked by his thirst after running, was to build a misting cover that would surround a home's outdoor air conditioning unit, thereby creating a micro-climate that's 10-15 degrees cooler. "That cooler air is going into your unit, causes your unit to be more efficient - about 20-30 percent more efficient - saving you on your electricity and supplying cooler air to your home," said Shelley Baker, Mist Ecology corporate secretary/accounting manager. "If you have an upstairs room or a west-side room that just never stays cool, an AC Spritzer can help your unit supply cooler air to those rooms."

Burns says the AC Spritzer has potential to help businesses with substantial air conditioning needs - restaurants, data centers, commercial office buildings - improve their cooling capacities and cut costs. "Our commercial application also solves several other problems. In restaurants you have particularly dirty and greasy environments. The grease exhaust from the grill typically flows up and straight into the coils of your commercial unit. Our filters catch that grease on the outside. They also create a chamber so that the cool air has a better effect before entering your rooftop unit, making that process more efficient.

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