Experimental and parametric sensitivity analysis of a novel indirect evaporative cooler for greener cooling

•Experimental and sensitivity analysis of a novel indirect evaporative cooler is presented.•Maximum temperature drop, COP and wet bulb efficiency achieved 18 °C, 31 and 93%.•The highest performance is achieved at the maximum outdoor air temperature.•Proposed system showed competitive performance and resilient design.•Proposed system configuration showed potential for commercial scale expansion. Energy-efficient space cooling is one of the biggest challenges because of high energy consumption and emissions and exponentially growing demand. Besides, the use of high global warming potential chemical-based refrigerants in the conventional system is stressing the need for a sustainable and economical alternative. Owing to these reasons, water-based cooling systems have gained significant attention because of their simple operation, low energy consumption, easy manufacturing, and benign environmental footprints. However direct evaporative cooling systems usage is limited by high humidity issues because such levels of humidity are incompatible with human comfort and certain industrial needs such as electronics cooling. Regarding the existing indirect evaporative cooling systems, they have design limitations that have hindered their commercial development. These include multilayer heat transfer walls, complex manufacturing, heavyweight, microbial growth on hydrophilic surfaces, and water management issues. The proposed innovative indirect evaporative cooling system addresses the major limitations in existing systems such as water management and wet channel surface development. A prototype has been fabricated and tested. Experimental investigation showed that the system achieved competitive performance with a maximum temperature drop of 18 °C, a coefficient of performance of 31, and wet bulb efficiency of 93%. Besides, the system also offers several advantages like high operational life, low maintenance, low cost, and resilient design which can lead to commercial scale development for greener cooling.