Experimental investigation of a novel metal-organic framework (MOF) based humidity pump under high humidity conditions

Kan Zu,Menghao Qin

doi:10.1088/1742-6596/2069/1/012049

Abstract

Latent heat load accounts for a significant proportion of air-conditioning energy consumption and particularly for specific environment in humid climates. Traditional vapor-compression refrigeration dehumidification faces the problem of refrigerant leakage, overcooling and complicated mechanical systems. Here, we report a novel humidity pump that uses semiconductor refrigeration and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as dehumidification method, which can efficiently transport moisture from a relatively ‘low-humidity’ space to a high-humidity one. The working principles of the humidity pump were introduced that the process air flows through the cold desiccant coated heat exchanger and then comes into direct contact with the MOF coatings to transfer heat and mass. The dehumidification performance of humidity pump was investigated in high humidity, and the dehumidification coefficient of performance (DCOP), dehumidification rate and moisture removal efficiency using MIL-100(Fe) coatings were calculated. The results indicated that the MOF humidity pump possesses excellent moisture transfer ability.

Highlights

With the diminishing of the natural resources, the energy consumption in the building gains much more attention, there is an urgent need to search for high-efficient methods for energy utilization [1]
The working principles of the humidity pump were introduced that the process air flows through the cold desiccant coated heat exchanger and comes into direct contact with the metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) coatings to transfer heat and mass
The results indicated that the MOF humidity pump possesses excellent moisture transfer ability

Summary

Introduction

With the diminishing of the natural resources, the energy consumption in the building gains much more attention, there is an urgent need to search for high-efficient methods for energy utilization [1]. In the field of indoor hygrothermal control, the solid desiccant dehumidification systems are widely adopted to control the total load, where latent load usually accounts for up to 20-40% [2]. This device features increasing temperature at the dehumidification channel due to the inherent adsorption heat of the hygroscopic materials, leading to bulky size and low efficiency of the system [3]. Many have reported the desiccant used dehumidification system [5,6,7] In these reported systems, the operation performance varies as the employed desiccant changed, and the conventional systems have a series of problems, i.e. the leakage of refrigerant, bulky size, etc. In terms of these problems, some novel materials such as metal-organic framework (MOF) [8, 9] reported with remarkable sorption capacity and gentle regeneration condition can well deal with the poor performance of the traditional materials, and the thermoelectric module (TE) can provide both the cold and hot side for the adsorption and desorption of desiccant without using any refrigerant

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion