Paper Example on Efficient Designs for Dehumidification Systems: Background & Rationale

Background and Rationale

Moist air is usually undesirable in indoor settings since it causes people to have discomfort and it affects equipment and machinery inside houses. Therefore, there is a need to develop dehumidification systems that remove moisture from air and produce dry air. These dehumidifier systems need to have good designs that will allow them to perform their task efficiently. Air dehumidification is usually a process that uses a large amount of energy, which makes it expensive (Pillai & Ten, 2018). Moreover, in cases where the dehumidifier should dry air in a large room, such as in an indoor pool or a warehouse, the process ends up consuming much energy.

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The designed system needs to have several factors for it to have high efficiency. It needs to have good fluid mechanics for it to take in humid air dry and distribute it in a room efficiently to ensure that some areas of the room do not have moist air. This system should also have good thermodynamics to ensure that it does not waste heat energy. Specifically, most dehumidifier systems usually sub-cool air to condense out the moisture in it and then release the dry air back in the room (Pillai & Ten, 2018). These systems use the cool-reheat cycle of air to condense moisture after which they heat it back to the desired temperature (Shehadi, 2018). In this case, the thermodynamic design of the system should ensure that it does not waste energy, for it to be efficient in its operations. Consequently, some designs use economizers to ensure that they do not waste energy. However, this method needs at least two fans for pushing the air in the economizer, and thus, it is still expensive.

This paper develops a proposal for a research into the design of a package dehumidifier unit. It considers the factors that make a dehumidifier efficient based on the studies of different researchers. For instance, Costa, Bouzon, Vergara, and Orosa (2019) stated that a dehumidifier that uses isenthalpic and adiabatic processes to dry the air by contacting it with a desiccant is more energy efficient than other techniques. Considering these issues ensures the design and development of an efficient dehumidifier. This paper mainly considers dehumidifiers for large-scale applications, such as in indoor pool settings. These settings normally have large volume of air that need to be dehumidified. Therefore, it is crucial to consider energy efficiency of these systems.

Research Questions

The main research question that this paper uses is:

• Between fluid mechanics and thermodynamics characteristics, which factors are of the greatest significance when making a dehumidifier?
• What factors make a dehumidifier to have the highest efficiency?

Literature Review

Dehumidification refers to the process of removing humidity from air, leaving it dry. The need for dehumidifiers is higher in highly humid environments, such as the case for indoor pools. In such cases, the air is always humid, which demands for a mode of drying it. The need for dehumidifiers may also be high in large warehouses. Such cases require appropriate dehumidifier systems that will dry the air in those enclosures. Now, before selecting a dehumidifier for such a setting, a person needs to consider several factors. For instance, one needs to determine the dehumidification capacity of the system. Specifically, the installed system should be able to dry the air as fast as it gets humidified or else, it will not achieve its aim. It may end up leaving the air with high humidity levels. Secondly, it should not be too large for the enclosure as this would make it waste energy. Therefore, a person needs to find a balance between the dehumidification capacity and the power consumption of the installed system.

The process of selecting a dehumidifier system depends on the needs of the enclosure. For instance, it should consider the range withing which the humidity needs to be maintained. Secondly, it needs to focus on the size of the room or warehouse and the available energy for use in the dehumidifier. Finally, it should also pay attention to the price and running cost of the system to be installed. The dehumidification process of a system determines its energy consumption and running cost. Specifically, they use methods, such as desiccant dehumidification, sub-cooling of air using chilled water or refrigerant, wrap-around coil, and dual wheel systems (Pillai & Ten, 2018). These authors discuss these different methods and show how they have varying energy needs and installation and running costs.

When selecting a dehumidifier for a setting, one should decide on the best device to choose depending on the conditions of the environment. The technique that a dehumidifier uses to dry air determines its energy consumption and efficiency. For instance, Pillai and Ten (2018) discussed several types of dehumidifiers and showed the advantages of chilled water and desiccant dehumidifiers. They said that these designs cool air to freezing point of water, which then condenses the air, making it possible to remove it. The system then reheats the air to required temperature using an economizer setup. Their use of heat exchange between the incoming and outgoing air improves the energy efficiency of these systems.

An appropriate way of reducing the energy demands of this system is by using desiccant cooling. Shehadi (2018) considered the operation of such a system and stated that it uses a compression cycle, which reduces the latent load and temperature, thus causing moisture in the air to condense. The advantage of this system is that it controls the cooling temperature to reduce more moisture from the air to attain the required humidity level. Since this arrangement cools the air to a relatively low temperature, there is the need to reheat it to the desired temperature, which makes the setup to use much energy. Shehadi (2018) says that such a setup achieves up to 50% relative humidity while consuming same energy as a conventional system, such as the ones that Pillai and Ten (2018) described. The only challenge of this system is that its installation is much higher than the conventional dehumidifiers. On the other hand, operating this system requires less energy than the conventional ones, and thus, it ends up being more efficient than its competitors.

Moreover, Costa et al. (2019) proposed a different design, which is more efficient than a desiccant or chilled water system. Their system uses a controlled adiabatic expansion of humid air using a nozzle-diffuser arrangement, like the Foehn effect. They said that their simulations showed that the system can achieve 80% relative humidity while consuming ten times less energy than refrigeration dehumidifiers (Costa et al., 2019). They also added that advancements like the Peltier cooling system can improve the operation of this system to achieve 30-60% relative humidity. This information is crucial to a person intending to install a dehumidifier since it can lead to the development of a highly efficient system.

Research Methodology

This research project will review literature from different researchers that focus on this area of study. It will search for credible articles that discuss the impact of the design of a dehumidifier on its performance, and methods of improving the efficiency of the system. This review will lead to the development of a discussion of the most energy efficient dehumidifier system that can be used in indoor pool settings or in large warehouses. The project will use appropriate inclusion and exclusion strategies to ensure that it selects the most appropriate research articles for as sources of information. For instance, the articles will need to be recent for them to report current advancements in dehumidification. Moreover, the articles will need to be credible to ensure that they give applicable designs. After reviewing these literature sources, the project will use the literature to develop an appropriate dehumidification system.

References

Costa, A. M., Bouzon, R., Vergara, D., & Orosa, J. A. (2019). Eco-friendly pressure drop dehumidifier: An experimental and numerical analysis. Sustainability, 11(7), 2170. doi:10.3390/su11072170

Pillai, J., & Ten, R. D. (2018). Dehumidification strategies and their applicability based on climate and building typology. Building Performance Analysis Conference and SimBuild (pp. 759-766). Chicago, IL: ASHARAE and IBPSA-USA. Retrieved from https://www.ashrae.org/File%20Library/Conferences/Specialty%20Conferences/2018%20Building%20Performance%20Analysis%20Conference%20and%20SimBuild/Papers/C105.pdf

Shehadi, M. (2018). Review of humidity control technologies in buildings. Journal of Building Engineering, 19, 539-551. doi:10.1016/j.jobe.2018.06.009