Indirect evaporative cooling system improvement: A brief review

Evaporative cooling has caught the attention of many researchers due to its environmentally friendly characteristic since its uses water evaporation during its process. One of the promising evaporative cooling systems is indirect evaporative cooling (IEC). Various studies have been done by previous researchers to understand the characteristics and improvements towards the performance of IEC. There are many factors influencing the performance of an IEC such as the channel length, channel gap, air temperature, air humidity and air velocity. However, it is noticeable that IEC might face insufficient evaporation that affects the cooling performance. This article provides a brief review of the research progress for improving the IEC specifically on the internal enhancement strategies and methods to improve the poor wettability on the wet channel surface. It is expected that IEC will make more contributions especially to further reduce the energy consumptions in buildings with the recent developments and probable future opportunities to enhance their performance.