Study of Dehumidification and Regeneration in a Starch Coated Energy Wheel

Energy wheels were designed using desiccant-coated materials to exchange energy between supply and exhaust air streams to reduce the energy required to condition ventilation air. Recent advances in energy wheel design that use biopolymer desiccant materials have provided the motivation in this paper to investigate the performance of starch coated energy exchangers. A small-scale high amylose starch (HAS) coated exchanger was built, and its transient response to a step change in inlet humidity was acquired and studied at conditions of variable air flow rate and temperature. The humidity response, dehumidification, regeneration capacity, and the rate of moisture removal were measured. The results demonstrate that greater regeneration flow rate and temperature can enhance the regeneration capacity. In spite of the increase in the regeneration capacity, the moisture recovery (latent) effectiveness decreased as the air flow rate and/or temperature increased. The effectiveness is reduced by 15% when the flow ra...