The Experimental Study On The Performance Of Plate-Fin Enthalpy Exchanger Cores

As people put a greater emphasis on energy saving technologies and demand better indoor air quality,the air conditioner system not only has to introduce the fresh air from the outside into the room,but also deal with the extra energy consumption caused by the fresh air.The plate-fin enthalpy exchanger(or total heat exchanger),as an effective and inactive equipment,can accomplish the heat and moisture exchanging process simultaneously between the fresh and exhausted air.Encouraged by its function of energy recovery,more researchers have conducted the investigation on this equipment.Enthalpy exchanger consists of functional layers and support layers.The functional layers,which exchange the heat and moisture,play a critical role in improving performance of the exchanger,especially in the latent heat efficiency.In this study,a series of tests about functional layers have been took to investigate the influence of different factors on the water permeability.Modified paper by spraying calcium chloride solution is proposed to improve the hygroscopicity of conventional material,which can enforce mass transfer through the material and provide the basis to solve the problem of low latent heat efficiency.Performance of exchanger cores made by the modified functional layers and by original layers are tested and compared.Results demonstrate that sensible heat efficiency,latent efficiency and enthalpy efficiency of modified exchanger cores obviously increase at different flow velocity.Especially,the latent efficiency of the exchanger core treated by 30% salt solution enhances from 44% to 69% in the winter conditions.The increasing of pressure drop caused by treatment can be ignored.In addition,practical application of the modified enthalpy exchanger is tested and it is proven that the modified exchanger can obtain higher energy recovery index compared with original one.