Hybrid Air-Conditioning for Electric Vehicles by Combining a Heating and a Desiccant System

Authors

Uwe Bau, MSc., Dipl.-Ing. Heike Schreiber, Dr.-Ing. Franz Lanzerath,
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. André Bardow,
Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen

Summary

A key challenge for electric vehicles is the limited driving range by the batteries. Especially in winter, the driving range of electric vehicles is substantially reduced due to missing waste heat from the internal combustion engine. In this paper, a desiccantassisted
heating concept is proposed. In a dynamic simulation study, it is shown that the desiccant-assisted concept allows significantly reducing battery requirements for heating. The desiccant-assisted system actively removes water from the airflow allowing an increased air recirculation rate without risk of windshield fogging. The increased air recirculation rate results in a reduction of the electricity demand for heating up to 66% compared to a conventional set-up without desiccant module and no air recirculation. Additionally, heat-up times at the beginning of a ride can be reduced significantly with the desiccant-assisted system: from 14 to 6 min for an ambient temperature of -10 °C.

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