Enhancement of the Dehumidifying Capability: a Porous Adsorbent with Liquid Desiccant as Its Flowing Surface

摘要

Absorption refrigeration systems are attracting more attention than ever before since it always attaches the advantage of utilizing renewable energy. The dehumidifier is the key component for such a system and it could be divided into two kinds as solid-adsorption method and liquid-absorption method. The liquid one, though with a weaker dehumidifying effect, possesses the priority of the flowing characteristic that guarantees the dehumidifying continuity and its regeneration process calls for the heat source with a lower temperature than the former one, which provides a wider range for renewable energy selection. According to this, we propose a new dehumidifier design conception to enhance the dehumidifying capability by "integrating" the features of the two methods together; we make the liquid desiccant flow upon the surface of porous adsorbent in order to pile up the adsorption potential. The experiments were conducted with CaCU solution as the liquid desiccant and the silica gel self-indicator as the adsorbent. It is found that the dehumidifying effect has been improved by more than 30%, which not only caused by the contacting area enlargement but also may indicate that the piling-up potential works.