The use of psychrometric charts for the optimisation of a thermal swing desiccant wheel

An effective prediction is proposed to estimate the optimal rotation speed and performance of a rotary adsorber, in which simultaneous enthalpy and humidity changes are dealt with separately by visualising changes of state of product or exhaust air on a psychrometric chart. Assuming that the adsorbent rotor is completely regenerated to equilibrium with the regeneration air during the corresponding period, the optimal rotation speed corresponds to the region of the short time adsorption in which penetration theory holds and enthalpy exchange between both streams through the adsorbent rotor follows the behaviour of a rotary sensible heat exchanger at lower revolution rates. The change of the product/exhaust air condition with increasing rotational speed is presented as a set of simple equations. Also, by considering the relative humidity of product air and that of regeneration air to be almost the same at a sufficiently high flow rates of regeneration air, an optimal rotation speed and the product air condition are easily found by simple calculation. In comparison with experiments, the proposed method gives a rotational speed near the optimum and the humidity and temperature of the product air are predicted almost exactly. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.