Independent air dehumidification with membrane-based total heat recovery: Modeling and experimental validation

Fresh air ventilation is helpful for the control of epidemic respiratory disease like Swine flu (H1N1). Fresh air dehumidification systems with energy recovery measures are the key equipments to realize this goal. As a solution, an independent air dehumidification system with membrane-based total heat recovery is proposed. A prototype is built in laboratory. A detailed model is proposed and a cell-by-cell simulation technique is used in simulation to evaluate performances. The results indicate that the model can predict the system accurately. The effects of varying operating conditions like air-flow rates, temperature, and air relative humidity on the air dehumidification rates, cooling powers, electric power consumption, and thermal coefficient of performance are evaluated. The prototype has a COP of 6.8 under nominal operating conditions with total heat recovery. The performance is rather robust to outside weather conditions with a membrane-based total heat exchanger.