Abstract
The adsorption-desorption behavior of flax fibers (FFs) is reported in this paper. FFs are a potential desiccant material for air-to-air energy wheels, which transfer heat and moisture in building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. The raw FFs sample was subjected to physical modification, followed by complementary material characterization to understand the relationship between its structure and its moisture uptake performance. The surface and textural properties of the modified FFs were determined by gas adsorption (N2, H2O) and gravimetric liquid water swelling studies and further supported by spectroscopic (infrared and scanning electron microscopy) results. A FF-coated small-scale energy exchanger was used to determine the moisture transfer (or latent effectiveness; ϵl) using single-step and cyclic testing. The FF-coated exchanger had ϵl values of ∼10 and 40% greater compared to similar exchangers coated with starch particles (SPs) and silica gel (SG) reported in a previous study. The enhanced surface and textural properties, along with the complex compositional structure of FFs and its greater propensity to swell in water, account for the improved performance over SPs. Thus, FFs offer an alternative low-cost, environment-friendly, and sustainable biodesiccant for air-to-air energy wheel applications in buildings. The current study contributes to an improved understanding of the structure-function relationship of biodesiccants for such energy wheel applications.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 9529-9539 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | ACS Omega |
Volume | 5 |
Issue number | 16 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 28 2020 |
Externally published | Yes |
Funding
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Saskatchewan (Ministry of Agriculture and the Canadian Agriculture Partnership) through the Agricultural Development Fund (project # 20160266). Michael Oelck at Carnation BioProducts Inc. (Saskatoon, SK) is kindly acknowledged for provision of the sample of SPs and Alvin Ulrich at Biolin Research Inc. (Saskatoon, SK) for provision of the FFs for this research. Hayden Reitenbach and Shawn Reinink in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan are acknowledged for their technical support and for assistance with the facility modification and maintenance.