Performance exploration on a small sorption device extracting water from air for museum display cases

Abstract

• A novel sorption device for water supply for museum display cases. • Forced convection should be avoided during desorption process. • Higher heating power could increase water production rate. • Thicker adsorption bed has a better performance of water extraction. To protect historic relics in museums, it is necessary to control the humidity of display cases. Air is a good source to supplement water consumption. Thus a small sorption device that extracts water from air is proposed during the humidity control process. A model based on heat and mass transfer process is established while an experiment is conducted. Experimental data and numerical results have a good agreement. It is demonstrated that thicker adsorption bed has better performance. The maximum water production of 26.31 g is achieved when bed thickness is 35 mm. Higher heating power accelerates water extraction process but decreases the amount of produced water and efficiency of water extraction. The maximum water production of 21.83 g and the highest water production per energy consumption of 7.87e-5 g/J are achieved when the heating power is 30 W. Reducing thermal resistance of the condenser can effectively increase the amount of produced water, especially when heating power is high and adsorption bed is thin. The results provide guidance for design and operation of small air water extraction device, and the proposed sorption device proves to have vast potential to extract water for museum display cases.