doi: 10.3850/978-981-08-7614-2_IMPRES040

ABSTRACT

Microwave heating has a potential to be a novel regeneration method of desiccant rotor in desiccant humidity conditioner, because of its advantages of direct and rapid heating of material. Therefore, we have proposed the combined regeneration process, which combines microwave heating and conventional hot-air heating. The system is expected to promote lower heat utilization by assisting water desorption with an additional energy of microwave. In this study, regeneration characteristics of desiccant rotor were experimentally investigated in microwave heating, hot-air heating, and combined heating systems under various microwave powers and hot-air temperatures. The effectiveness of combined regeneration was evaluated in terms of regeneration ratio and initial regeneration rate. As a result, it was demonstrated that combined heating was effective to level non-uniform temperature distribution. Consequently, combined heating achieved higher regeneration ratio compared to just hot-air and microwave heating. In addition, both initial regeneration rate and equilibrium regeneration ratio with combined heating were found to increase with an increase in microwave power, and they had a linear relationship with respect to microwave power.

Keywords: Microwave irradiation, Desiccant rotor, Regeneration, Desiccant humidity conditioner.

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