Comparative Life Cycle Analysis for Duct Air Conditioning Systems Based on Evaporative and Vapor Compression Technologies

Andrzej Marcinkowski () and Dmytro Levchenko
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Andrzej Marcinkowski: Institute of Marketing and Sustainable Development, Faculty of Organization and Management, Lodz University of Technology, ul. Wólczańska 221, 93-005 Łódź, Poland
Dmytro Levchenko: Institute of Marketing and Sustainable Development, Faculty of Organization and Management, Lodz University of Technology, ul. Wólczańska 221, 93-005 Łódź, Poland

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 13, 1-26

Abstract: The environmental impact of innovative indirect regenerative evaporative cooling (IREC) technology is analyzed using the life cycle assessment. This study compared typical equipment using this technology from Innovative Ideas LLC with available-on-the-market traditional vapor compression ducted air conditioning systems as the closest analogous representatives of the vapor compression technology. For comparison, units with the same cooling capacity (5 kW) were selected. The endpoint indicators demonstrated that the air conditioning systems using IREC technology had lower environmental load compared to the vapor compression system by 29–70%, depending on the scenario and damage category. This advantage resulted from the significantly higher coefficient of performance of the IREC system. The amounts of cooling energy generated and electricity consumption were determined based on temperature and relative humidity data recorded at hourly intervals in the summer seasons of 2023 and 2024. The operation turned out to be a life cycle stage with dominating environmental load. The uncertainty analysis carried out with Monte Carlo simulations indicated significant deviation, particularly for the ecosystem category. The sensitivity analysis showed that the assumed electricity mix did not significantly affect the general conclusions.

Keywords: evaporative cooling; vapor compression refrigerating machines (VCRMs); dew point indirect evaporative cooler (DPIEC); indirect regenerative evaporative cooling (IREC); Maisotsenko cycle (M-cycle); life cycle assessment (LCA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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