ECO-CBET: GOALI: Condensing water from the air for building dehumidification and decarbonization using thermo-responsive desiccants

ECO-CBET：GOALI：使用热敏干燥剂从空气中冷凝水，用于建筑除湿和脱碳

• 批准号: 2318720
• 负责人: SHUANG CUI
• 金额: $ 166.97万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Dallas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-10-01 至 2027-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2318720&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: ECO; CBET; GOALI; Condensing; water

2318720 (Shuang). Managing the humidity of buildings is essential for maintaining occupant comfort, reducing defects in moisture-sensitive manufacturing (e.g., semiconductors), and preventing foodborne pathogens in food preservation. Existing Heating, Ventilation, and Air-conditioning (HVAC) systems rely on either cold surface condensation or hygroscopic materials as desiccants to remove moisture from air. However, this is an energy-inefficient process due to the low-temperature setpoint essential for sufficient moisture condensation and the extra energy required to overcome significant enthalpy of vaporization in dehumidification. Currently, humidity control in buildings alone is responsible for 600 million tons of CO2 annually. Hence, efficient air dehumidification represents an excellent opportunity to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions to facilitate the sustainability and decarbonization movement and counteract climate change. The vision of this convergent project is to initiate and establish high-efficiency dehumidification systems that directly condense water from the air through collaborative and interdisciplinary efforts in building sustainability, thermal transport, civil engineering, and chemical engineering. This fundamental research promoting more efficient building dehumidification will directly benefit national health and national manufacturing. Furthermore, the research is closely integrated with interdisciplinary environmental research training for college students and early-career scientists, which will benefit the STEM workforce.This project pursues energy-efficient dehumidification utilizing Thermo-Responsive (TR) desiccants with temperature-dependent adsorption isotherms—benefiting from the thermo-responsive switchable hydrophilicity below and above the Lower Critical Solution Temperature (LCST)—and high adsorption capacity. In addition, the thermo-responsiveness of TR desiccants breaks traditional desiccants’ fixed affinity to water, which allows for the release of water in liquid form and avoids the high energy requirements of water vaporization in traditional desiccants during the regeneration. The project will (1) develop durable TR desiccants with tunable LCSTs and optimum temperature-dependent adsorption isotherms for different dehumidification conditions, (2) improve the heat and mass transfer rate of TR desiccant wheels by optimizing the design parameters through modeling and experimental validation, (3) develop techniques to remove the adsorbed water in liquid form, and (4) evaluate the efficiency of the TR desiccant wheel in the dehumidification system by performing a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) experiment. The proposed TR desiccant wheel with temperature-dependent adsorption isotherms leads to low regeneration temperatures and the potential to bypass the heat of evaporation. The unique property of desorbing the adsorbed moisture in the liquid form during the regeneration saves up to 6x energy compared to traditional approaches in HVAC application, which saves up to 30% carbon emission. Moreover, condensed water from the air can be collected and used to alleviate water scarcity in building operations in arid climates.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

2318720 (Shuang)。管理建筑物的湿度对于保持居住者的舒适度、减少对湿度敏感的制造（例如半导体）的缺陷以及防止现有供暖、通风和空调 (HVAC) 中的食源性病原体至关重要。系统依靠冷表面冷凝或吸湿材料作为干燥剂来去除空气中的水分，但由于温度较低，这是一个能源效率低下的过程。目前，仅建筑物内的湿度控制每年就会产生 6 亿吨二氧化碳，因此，高效的空气除湿是减少能源使用的绝佳机会。该融合项目的愿景是启动和建立直接冷凝空气中的水的高效除湿系统。通过在建筑可持续性、热传输、土木工程和化学工程方面的协作和跨学科努力，这项促进更高效的建筑除湿的基础研究将直接有益于国民健康和国家制造业。此外，该研究与大学的跨学科环境研究培训紧密结合。学生和早期职业科学家，这将使 STEM 劳动力受益。该项目利用具有与温度相关的吸附等温线的热响应 (TR) 干燥剂来追求节能除湿——受益于低于和高于下临界溶液温度 (LCST) 的热响应可切换亲水性以及高吸附能力此外，TR 干燥剂的热响应性打破了传统干燥剂对水的固定亲和力，从而可以释放液体中的水。该项目将 (1) 开发具有可调 LCST 的耐用 TR 干燥剂和不同除湿条件下的最佳温度相关吸附等温线，（2）通过建模和实验验证优化设计参数，提高TR除湿轮的传热传质速率，（3）开发去除液态吸附水的技术， (4) 通过进行硬件在环 (HIL) 实验来评估除湿系统中 TR 干燥剂轮的效率。等温线导致再生温度较低，并且有可能绕过蒸发热，与 HVAC 应用中的传统方法相比，再生过程中解吸液体形式的吸附水分的独特性能可节省高达 6 倍的能源。此外，可以收集空气中的冷凝水并用于缓解干旱气候下建筑运营中的水资源短缺问题。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并被认为值得通过以下方式获得支持：使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。