Modelling of a Liquid Desiccant System for Northern Community Greenhouses

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The climate of remote northern Canadian communities makes growing local foodstuffs difficult. Additionally,the long distances to other communities and the lack of transportation infrastructure make the purchase of freshproduce expensive. To solve this problem, Cindar Power Developments Inc. is developing a newhigh-performance greenhouse for use in northern climates. The new greenhouse design will be coupled with ahigh-efficiency, wood-gasification cogeneration power plant. The high-performance greenhouse will make usea new, ultra-low pressure-drop, liquid desiccant dehumidifier system that will be developed to handle the highlatent (i.e., dehumidification) greenhouse loads. Liquid desiccant systems use water absorbing salt solutions toreduce air humidity. This uses less electrical energy than traditional vapour-compression dehumidifiers thatrely on overcooling to remove moisture. The main energy input required is heat, which is used to reject themoisture from the desiccant solution to the outdoor air. This heat will be supplied from the high-efficiencycogeneration plant. This NSERC Engage grant brings together researchers from Queen's and Cindar PowerDevelopments Inc. Queen's researchers have extensive experience in the modelling and evaluation of novelliquid desiccant systems and the Engage funding will allow the performance of the new greenhouse and liquiddesiccant system to be studied under Northern climatic conditions. Completion of this project will allow Cindarto build a pilot plant in a North-Western Ontario community in the near future. This facility should providelow-cost fresh produce, heat and electricity, as well as jobs in the community.