Vapor adsorption transient test facility for dehumidification and desorption studies

The steady state performance testing of industrial-scale energy wheels requires large-scale and advanced instrumentation to analyze large volumes of data. In order to address the feasibility of laboratory-scale studies, experimental modelling and data simulation have been successfully performed by means of the transient and cyclic testing of a heat exchanger within an energy wheel setup in a parallel-flow air stream configuration. However, major challenges have been encountered in terms of predicting the effectiveness of a counter-flow energy wheel configuration in different operating conditions via the use of a transient test setup in a parallel-flow configuration. In the present study, we report the modification of a transient test facility intended to facilitate the more accurate simulation of a full-scale energy wheel operation in a small-scale test facility. A new test section was designed to: (1) enable tests in both counter-flow and parallel-flow configurations; (2) afford automated cyclic testing and achieve the reliable simulation of the energy wheels dehumidification/regeneration cycles; and (3) enhance the accuracy and reduce the uncertainty of the relative humidity (RH) measurements through utilization of the bag sampling method. The latter method is shown to yield greater accuracy with regard to the RH in non-isothermal operating conditions, as well as to reduce the data processing required for the estimation of latent effectiveness.