Conference Year
2018
Keywords
Thermal conductivity, humidity, adsorption, correlation
Abstract
Study on effective thermal conductivity (ETC) of desiccant materials is getting attention in the literature in order to optimize the operating parameters of close and open cycle adsorption cooling systems. In addition, it is an important parameter to enhance the performance of adsorption heat pump and adsorption cooling systems (AHP/ACS). Most of the desiccant materials are porous in nature, therefore, results in different ETC at different operating conditions i.e. temperature and humidity. In order to find the more precise performance expression, the combined effect of desiccant porosity, temperature and relative humidity (RH) should be considered. In this regard, many empirical and theoretical models have been presented for the estimation of ETC. Models developed in the literature are characterized by a single value at a particular temperature irrespective of humidity. Hence this study experimentally investigates the relative humidity effect on the thermal conductivity of the commercially available desiccant material i.e. AQSOA-Z05.The levels of RH were investigated in the range of 8% to 100%. The results showed that ETC of oven dry adsorbent material was 0.066 W/mK whereas it increased from 0.067-0.089 W/mK at RH of 8-100%, respectively. The ETC values increase due to the phenomena of pores filling by water vapor adsorption. It also showed that pore filling incorporate the change in the mean free path and it varied from 6.93-0.55μm at RH range 8-100%, respectively. Consequently, an empirical correlation has been presented which can predict the effective thermal conductivity at different levels of RH.