Abstract
Vacuum membrane air dehumidification has gained significant interest in recent years as a highly efficient means of air dehumidification. Prior theoretical modeling work by the authors 1 introduced the Active Membrane Energy Exchanger (AMX) concept, which combines active heat exchange and vacuum membrane dehumidification into one non-isothermal system, and found that it could outperform other air conditioning technologies under many conditions. However, no experimental literature exists on combining active heat exchangers and vacuum membrane dehumidification. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the dehumidification (mass transfer) performance of the AMX concept relative to isothermal membrane dehumidification through three main methodologies: (1) membrane material-level characterization, (2) experimental prototype development and testing, and (3) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The dense membranes used in this work showed up to a 40% increase in water vapor permeance at cooler temperatures, and the prototype system showed up to a 6% increase in humidity removal when the air was simultaneously cooled. Furthermore, the membrane module-integrated heat exchange tubes provided additional mixing and turbulence, leading to a 4-8% increase in humidity removal. The upper limit coefficient of performance was equal to approximately 2.2, necessitating advanced system designs to improve efficiency. This study is the first to highlight that combining the cooling and vacuum dehumidification processes can improve dehumidification performance.
Keywords
membrane, dehumidification, non-isothermal, efficiency, air conditioning
Date of this Version
1-15-2023
Recommended Citation
Fix, Andrew J.; Gupta, Shivam; Braun, James E.; and Warsinger, David M., "Demonstrating non-isothermal vacuum membrane air dehumidification for efficient next-generation air conditioning" (2023). School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications. Paper 75.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/mepubs/75
Comments
This is the author accepted manuscript of Fix, AJ; Gupta, S; Braun, JE; Warsinger, DM. (2023) "Demonstrating non-isothermal vacuum membrane air dehumidification for efficient next-generation air conditioning." Energy Conversion and Management 276. Copyright Elsevier, it is made available here CC-BY-NC-ND, and the version of record is available at DOI: 10.1016/j.enconman.2022.116491.