Study on water-vapor adsorption onto polymer and carbon based adsorbents for air-conditioning applications

Abstract

Carbon-based materials have shown huge potential in various adsorption based applications e.g. water and wastewater treatment. In addition, these are successfully utilized for various (methanol-, ethanol-, and ammonia-based) closed-cycle adsorption heat pump systems. Significance of polymers is also well-known in drug/medical industry, and therefore extensively studied for various aspects of adsorption. The study comprises two kinds of polymer and carbon- based materials for potential air-conditioning applications. Water vapor adsorption comparison has been made among polymer, carbon-based and conventional hydrophilic adsorbent i.e. silica-gel. The size of desiccant unit in desiccant air-conditioning (DAC) system has been determined and compared accordingly. Results showed that polymer sorbent (PS-II) can reduce the desiccant unit size (in the DAC system) by 2-3 times as compare to conventional silica-gel under particular conditions while utilizing it intelligently.