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The differential heat of dilution data are estimated theoretically using Duhring's diagrams for water/LiBr, water/(LiBr + LiI + LiNO 3  + LiCl) with mass compositions in salts of 60.16%, 9.55%, 18.54% and 11.75%, respectively, and water/(LiNO 3  + KNO 3  + NaNO 3 ) with mass compositions in salts of 53%, 28% and 19%, respectively, as these can be potentially utilized as working fluids in absorption cooling systems. The differential heat of dilution data obtained were correlated with simple polynomial equations for the three working fluids as a function of the solution concentration and temperature. The results showed that the differential heat of dilution of the non-conventional working fluid mixtures is lower than that of water/LiBr at typical operating temperature and concentration of interest in absorption cooling cycles employing these working fluid mixtures. The correlations developed could be useful in predicting the differential heat of dilution value while performing heat and mass transfer analyses of these potential non-conventional working fluid mixtures in absorption cooling systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new challenge of the European Commission is to limit water consumption in Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plants, especially significant in the cooling process. Hybrid cooling systems are presented as a potential solution to achieve water consumption reduction since they also avoid a high penalty of efficiency loss in the power block. In this work, a hybrid cooling pilot plant installed at Plataforma Solar de Almería is evaluated experimentally. The system has been tested under different ambient and operating conditions to analyze their influence on the water and electricity consumption. The results reveal that significant water savings were achieved in comparison with the conventional only-wet configuration. Concretely, a maximum water consumption saving of 67% was found at high ambient temperatures (between 25 and 30 °C) and for a thermal load of 80% when a hybrid configuration was used. The optimal operating strategies that achieve a tradeoff between low water and electricity consumption have been identified by two efficiency indexes: the specific electricity and water consumption. The parallel configuration was the optimal one in most of the cases. At high ambient temperatures and 80% thermal load, the electricity and water consumptions of this configuration were 0.033 kW e /kW th and 0.071 L/kW th , respectively. • Test campaign to investigate the optimal configurations of a hybrid cooler. • Trade-off between water and electric energy consumption under several conditions. • Specific electricity consumption and specific water consumption for the evaluation. • Maximum water consumption saving of 67% for parallel configuration split ratio 25%. • Maximum electricity reduction of 59% for parallel configuration split ratio 50%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]