Abstract
Cloth drying is a major consumer of energy, and most drying is conducted by evaporative methods. The evaporative drying energy efficiency limit is commonly assumed to be 100%: one unit of latent heat removed per unit of energy expended. However, this ignores the “free drying” available from unsaturated ambient air and the possible role of heat pumping. We demonstrate that efficiency limits for evaporative drying are fundamentally related to both drying rate and ambient psychrometric conditions. A relationship among efficiency, drying rate, and ambient conditions is quantified for several evaporative drying technologies, and a comparison among evaporative technologies is provided. In addition, a comparison is provided between efficiency limits and state of the art device performance. This research will help guide future research in the most promising directions.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 104-124 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Drying Technology |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2021 |
Funding
This work was sponsored by the US Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle, LLC. This research used resources at the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The authors would like to acknowledge Mr. Antonio Bouza, Technology Manager, HVAC&R, Water Heating, and Appliances, US Department of Energy Building Technologies Office. The authors would also like to thank Matthew Weathers for operation of the unheated tumble dryer test, Kathy Jones for formatting, and Deborah Counce for technical editing. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| US Department of Energy | |
| US Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office | DE-AC05-00OR22725 |
| U.S. Department of Energy |
Keywords
- Carnot
- Fabric drying
- clothes drying
- energy efficiency
- heat pump
