Investigation on performance of air source heat pump water heater combined with liquid-vapor separation condenser.

This paper proposed a novel condenser used in outer-coil Air source heat pump water heater (ASHPWH) system, which called liquid-vapor separation micro-channel condenser (LSMC), applies with the liquid vapor separation method to enhance the condensation heat transfer. Except for the outer-coil condenser, the other components of the two systems such as compressor, evaporator, throttling valve and the water tank were the same. To compare the systems performance of the two ASHPWH systems, a series experiments were tested under Chinese standard experimental conditions. The results showed that the water heating capacity and the COP of the LSMC system is from 7.5% to 10.9% and from 5.3% to 12.3% higher than that of the PFMC system, respectively. And the pressure drops of the LSMC system were from 75.5% to 85% lower than that of the PFMC system. The results demonstrate that the novel condenser makes the heat pump water heater better thermodynamic performance.