A non-uniform temperature non-uniform pressure dynamic model of heat and mass transfer in compact adsorbent beds

This paper discusses a new dynamic two-dimensional model for the simulation of innovative consolidated-type adsorbent beds to use in adsorption energy systems. It consists of a cylindrical pipe, conveying the thermal vector fluid, coated with a layer of consolidated zeolite. The governing equations take into account with detail the transport phenomena and are solved according to advanced numerical methods in the time and space domain. A parametric analysis is carried out for the evaluation of the overall system performance sensitivity to the most meaningful parameters, such as adsorbent bed thickness, water vapour permeability and heat transfer coefficients. A critical discussion is also made about the most credited adsorbent bed arrangements, i.e., pure powder, consolidated powder and metal bound consolidated powder. It was possible to demonstrate that the adsorbent bed, of consolidated powder type, proposed by the CNR-ITAE Lab, performs better than other bed arrangements available in the literature.