Proceedings of the 4th International Forum on Heat Transfer, IFHT2016

November 2-4, 2016, Sendai, Japan

IFHT2016-1979

HEAT AND MOISTURE TRANSFER IN A DESICCANT AIRFLOW UNIT

FOR AIR-CONDITIONING APPLICATIONS

,,* ,
Wei-Lun Hsu1 , Soumyadeep Paul1,2 , Jubair A. Shamim1, Hirofumi Daiguji1
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
2
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (BHU),
Varanasi 221-005, India

ABSTRACT

Due to their advantages of high energy transfer efficiency and eco-friendly characteristics over conventional
refrigerant-based air-conditioning systems, dehumidification systems utilizing desiccant materials have
emerged as a promising green technology for a range of air-conditioning facilities. To achieve higher energy
efficiency during the operation process, an understanding of airflow, heat and moisture transfer in the
operated systems is required. In this study, we investigate the adsorption property and energy transfer of a
desiccant airflow unit (30 cm in length), which consists of five parallel desiccant layers (0.2 mm in
thickness) comprising distinct porous silicates. A theoretical model is constructed to analyze experimental
work by employing coupled momentum, heat and mass conservation equations. The computational
difficulties of resolving this multi-scale system are circumvented by using an implicit finite volume method
with a structured mesh. It shows that the initial relative humidity (RH) dropped from 60% at the inlet to
40 % at the outlet at the flow rate = 16 L/min and this RH difference was reduced by half per 5 minutes.

KEY WORDS: Desiccant air-conditioning system, Mesoporous silica, Computational simulation, Langmuir-Sips
adsorption isotherm

1. INTRODUCTION

Desiccant dehumidification and cooling systems [1], which adopt adsorption properties of desiccant
materials to control humidity and temperature, have attracted considerable attention for air-conditioning
applications. Compared with conventional air-conditioning devices that cool down the air through a
refrigeration cycle by refrigerants, such as chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) and
orhydrofluorocarbon (HFC), desiccant air-conditioning devices regulate humidity and temperature through
dehumidification and evaporation processes using desiccant materials. While most of these refrigerants are
notorious as ozone-depleting chemicals and greenhouse gases [2], desiccant materials, such as silica gel, are
nonhazardous to the environment.

In addition to the environmental issue, the refrigerant-based systems lack efficient ways for energy
utilization [3]. For example, to condense water vapor onto a cooling coil, the air temperature has to be
cooled down to its dew point which is normally below comfortable temperatures in houses. Therefore, a
consecutive heat-up process following the cooling has to be conducted for the desired indoor temperature
levels. Both the excess cooling and reheating processes consume additional energy, preventing the operation
of the systems from an efficient procedure of energy consumption. In contrast, desiccant air-conditioning
systems, which directly remove water vapor through the spontaneous imbibition process of water into porous
materials, are thermodynamically more effective for energy saving.

These authors contributed equally to this work.

*Corresponding Author: wlhsu@thml.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Selecting high performance desiccant materials is one of the pivotal factors in the design of desiccant air-
conditioning units. Mesoporous silica plays as a powerful candidate for the systems due to its unique
characteristic of quick adsorption and release of water within a specific range of humidity, enhancing the
operation speed, and its high water storage capacity, reducing the dimensions of desiccant units [4]. In this
study, we aim to build and investigate a desiccant dehumidification unit for air-conditioning applications
using distinct porous silicates. A computational model, considering air convection, mass transfer and heat
transfer, will be constructed to analyze experimental work.

2. EXPERIMENTAL

The experimental desiccant unit (30 cm x 1 cm x 3 cm) for investigation is schematically illustrated in Fig.
1a. Initially, the system was filled with a nitrogen gas to remove water vapor in the unit. When the
operation process began, a humid airflow with a flow rate of 16 L/min supplied into the device from the inlet
pipeline on the left. While the air flow passed the 0.2 mm thick desiccant layers (five in parallel), composed
of distinct porous silicates, water vapor was instantly adsorbed into the porous silicates. In the meanwhile,
the phase transition heat was released increasing the ambient temperature. The variations of average
humidity and temperature of the air at the outlet was monitored by inserting thermocouples and humidity
sensors into the inlet and outlet chambers.

Fig 1. (a) A schematic diagram of the desiccant airflow unit and (b) dimensions of the simulation domain.

3. MODELING

Cartesian coordinates (x, y, z) are employed for simulations as indicated in Fig.1b. We simplify the present
problem into a two-dimensional (x,y) system by assuming that the end effects on the sides of the channels in
the z-direction are negligible. The governing equations are derived based on the momentum, mass and
energy conservations laws [5]. It is considered that the temperature variation in the system is within a
reasonable range that it is valid to regard the air as an incompressible fluid. The steady-state continuity and
Navier-Stokes equations are employed for the air stream in the flow channels:

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v = 0 (1)

vv = p + 2 v (2)

where v is the air velocity vector, is the density of air, p is the air pressure and is the viscosity of air.
Based on the Brinkmans equation [6] for the air convection in porous media, a friction force term due to the
presence of the silica particles is considered within the desiccant layer to modify Eq. (2), viz

vv = p + 2 v + v (3)
K

Dp2 2 3
Here, K = is the permeability of the desiccant layer, where Dp = 100 m is the average silica
180(1 ) 2
particle diameter, = 1 (i.e. spherical particles) is the sphericity and = 0.3 is the porosity of the silica
particle bed.

Due to the presence of the desiccant layers, the humidity w decreases from the inlet to outlet during the moist
adsorption process. A transient mass transfer equation of water vapor is employed in the flow channel
region:

dw
+ v w = Dair 2 w (4)
dt

where, w is the humidity, t is the time and Da =2.82 x 10-5 m2/s is the diffusivity of water in the air. Within
the desiccant layer, an additional term for the moisture adsorption by the silica particles is considered:

dw dQ
+ v w = Dair 2 w silica (5)
dt dt

where silica is the density of silica and Q (kg of water/kg of silica) is the water adsorbed within the silica
dQ
particles. The adsorption rate is estimated by a linear driving force (LDF) model [7] for the water
dt
uptake in the silica particles:

dQ
= kads (Qeq Q ) (6)
dt

Here, Qeq (kg of water/kg of silica) is the adsorbed water at equilibrium and k ads is the rate constant of the
LDF equation. A typical value of k ads = 5 x 10-3 s-1 is adopted based on experimental measurements. The
Langmuir-Sips isotherm [8] is used to model the adsorption amount as follows:

b1 pv b pn
Qeq = qm ( + 2 v n) (7)
1 + b1 pv 1 + b2 pv

where pv is the partial pressure of water vapor and pv = p v0 at saturation. qm , b1 , b2 and n are constant
parameters. For heat transfer, the temperature T in the system is traced by employing a transient heat
transfer equation in the in the flow channel region:

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dT
+ v T = air 2T (8)
dt

where air = 1.9 x 10-5 m2/s is the thermal diffusivity of air. Considering the convection heat transfer
between the air and the silica particles within the desiccant layer, we derive heat transfer equations for the air
and silica particles within the desiccant layer by assuming that the adsorbed water reaches thermal
equilibrium with the its ambient silica particles instantly:

dT h A
+ v T = air 2T silica silica silica (T Tsilica ) (9)
dt C p, air

QC p, water dTsilica h A h
(1 + ) = silica 2Tsilica + silica silica (T Tsilica ) + ads k ads (Qeq Q) (10)
C p,silica dt C p,silica C p,silica

In these expressions, silica is the thermal diffusivity of silica, hsilica is the convective heat transfer
coefficient between the air and the silica particles, Asilica is the specific surface area of silica particles, Cp, air
= 1.03 x 103 J/(kgK) is the specific heat capacity of air, Tsilica is the temperature of the silica particles,
C p,water = 4.18 x 103 J/(kgK) is the specific heat capacity of liquid water, Cp,silica = 9.21 x 102 J/(kgK) is the
specific heat capacity of silica, and hads = 2.8 x 106 J/kg is the latent heat of water adsorption.

Based on the experimental setup, we assume that v = 0 , w = 0 and T = 300 K at t = 0. On the boundaries,
we assume that the air stream is fully developed and the average inlet velocity vave = 1 m/s, and
T (= Tinlet = 301.3K ) and w are uniform on the inlet. On the outlet, we assume that the air stream is fully
developed and the T and w are uniform in the horizontal direction. At the boundary of the desiccant layer
and the air channel, it is assumed that T , w and the heat flux are continuous, and the convection heat flux
on the air channel side equals the diffusion heat flux on the desiccant side, viz:

hsilica (Tsilica T ) = n ksilica Tsilica (11)

where n is the normal vector, pointing toward the air channel, at the desiccant layer and the air channel and
ksilica is the thermal conductivity of silica. Symmetry conditions are applied on centerline of the air channel,
i.e. the top and bottom boundaries.

By solving the governing equations, the output quantities, the total adsorbed water within the five desiccant
layers (DL) Qtotal , average outlet humidity woutlet and average outlet temperature Toutlet can be derived as
follows:

wdy T dy
Qtotal = 5 QdA , w outlet = outlet
, and Toutlet = outlet
(12)
DL
outlet
dy
outlet
dy

Multiphysics software arb [9], based on an implicit finite volume method, is employed for the simulations
using a structured computational mesh with a typical cell number of 110,300. The time difference between
each time step t = 0.5 s is adopted that a sensitivity test shows the difference of outlet humidity between
t = 0.5 and 0.01 s is lower that 0.02%.

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4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig 2. (a) Adsorption isotherm (at room temperature) of distinct porous silicates. The theoretical predictions
were derived based the Langmuir-Sips isotherm at qm = 0.39 kg/kg, b1 =0.715 Pa-1, b2 = 0.0368 Pa-6 and n =
6. (b) Qtotal at winlet = 60% relative humidity (RH) = 10.7 x 10-3 kg water/ kg dry air. (c) woutlet and (d)
Toutlet at different levels of winlet .

As shown in Fig. 2a, the parameters of the Langmuir-Sips model were obtained by experimental data fitting.
It is demonstrated that the slope of the adsorption isotherm curve was slightly higher when 50% < RH < 80%,
implying that it is more effective for adsorption/desorption processes within this humidity regime. The
overall adsorption behavior of the desiccant unit was theoretically examined using this adsorption isotherm.
A comparison between experimental measurements and theoretical predictions of the amount of water
adsorbed in the desiccant unit Qtotal is shown in Fig. 2b. The typical relaxation time of the unit is longer
than 10 min at winlet = 60% RH. Fig. 2c shows variation of woutlet with t. The initial difference (t 0 s)
between winlet and woutlet was about 20% ( winlet = 60% RH). The difference dropped to 10% and 5% at t = 5
and 10 minutes, respectively (i.e. reduced by half every 5 minutes). Fig. 2d shows Toutlet variation with t for
different winlet air streams. At the initial stage, Toutlet increased rapidly with t due to the high adsorption rate.
It shows that the temperature increase was more obvious at higher winlet levels implying a faster adsorption
rate. However, since the adsorption rate gradually decreased with t (as seen in Fig. 2b), T decreased with t
when t > 30 s. It is expected that Toutlet = Tinlet = 301.3K when saturated.

5. CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, we have investigated the adsorption behavior of a desiccant dehumidification device using
distinct porous silicates. A theoretical model has been constructed based on the momentum, mass and

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energy conservation principals, and the experimental adsorption behavior of the unit was verified by the
theoretical predictions. For a typical case at the inlet RH = 60%, the RH difference > 10 % was achieved for
more than 5 minutes at the inlet flow rate = 16 L/min.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This work was supported by Asahi Glass Co., Ltd.

NOMENCLATURE

Asilica specific surface area of silica Q adsorbed water (kg kg-1)

particles (m2 kg-1) Qeq adsorbed water at equilibrium (kg kg-1)
b1 Langmuir-Sips parameter (Pa-1) Qtotal total adsorbed water (kg)
b2 Langmuir-Sips parameter (Pa-6) t time (s)
Cp, air specific heat capacity of air (Jkg-1K-1) T air temperature (K)
Cp, silica specific heat capacity of silica (Jkg-1K-1) Tinlet inlet air temperature (K)
Toutlet average outlet air temperature (K)
Cp, water specific heat capacity of water (Jkg-1K-1)
Tsilica silica particle temperature (K)
Dair diffusivity of water vapor (m2 s-1)
v air velocity vector (m s-1)
Dp diameter of silica particles (m) vave average inlet air velocity (m s-1)
hads latent heat of adsorption (J kg-1) w humidity (kg kg-1)
hsilica convective heat transfer coefficient winlet inlet humidity (kg kg-1)
of silica in air (Wm-2K-1) woutlet average outlet humidity (kg kg-1)
k ads LDF rate constant (s-1) air thermal diffusivity of air (m2 s-1)
ksilica thermal conductivity of silica (Wm-1K-1) silica thermal diffusivity of silica (m2 s-1)
K permeability (m2) t time difference (s)
n Langmuir-Sips parameter (-) external porosity (-)
n unit normal vector (-) sphericity (-)
p air pressure (Pa)
viscosity of air (Pa s)
pv partial vapor pressure (Pa)
density of air (kg m-3)
pv0 saturated partial vapor pressure (Pa)
silica density of silica (kg m-3)
qm Langmuir-Sips parameter (kg kg-1)

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