Influence of Adsorbent Properties on Enthalpy Wheel Performance

Enthalpy wheels are regenerative heat exchangers capable of both latent and sensible heat transfer and, thereby, have a variety of industrial applications. Due to the relevance of these type of exchangers, a notable number of studies were presented over the last decades, and different levels of improvement on problem formulation were obtained. This paper presents simulations results using a unified formulation for heat and mass transfer regenerators and generalized effectiveness-NTU methodology, both developed in recent years. The presented analysis focuses on examining the effects of adsorbent properties, such as the water uptake and heat of sorption, on exchanger performance. The results show, as expected, that the performance is worse for materials with higher heat of sorption. On the other hand, when examining the adsorption isotherm form, it is seen that the employment of a favorable isotherm not necessarily results in better energy and mass exchange performance.Copyright © 2010 by ASME