Adsorption–desorption behavior of water vapor and heat-flow analysis of FAM-Z01-coated heat exchanger

The adsorption–desorption behavior of a fin-tube heat exchanger coated with Functional Adsorbent Material Zeolite (FAM-Z01) was investigated to experimentally determine the influence of the temperature of the hot water circulating in the heat exchanger and cycle time on adsorption-desorption behavior and heat flow. It was found that dehumidification performance increased significantly as the water temperature increased from 50 to 60 °C and to a lesser degree from 60 to 70 °C, in the temperature range in which the performance control step switches from regeneration to adsorption. Heat-flow analysis revealed that in the regeneration region the heat exchanger did not effectively use its heat supply, and preheating of the regeneration air was shown to improve the regeneration performance. Coefficient of performance COPth, which indicate the cooling efficiency, and COPlat, which indicate the dehumidifying efficiency, were significantly improved at a hot-water temperature of 50–60 °C. Thus, preheating of air was shown to be quite effective in improving dehumidifying performance at the lower range of hot-water temperatures.