(417ae) Adsorptive Drying of Air Using Low Grade Heat and Humid, Ambient Air

Desiccants are in use in a wide variety of applications such as drying of bulk industrial gas streams, climate control by humidification and desiccant cooling schemes. In this work several solid adsorbent for the purpose of air drying using low grade heat and ambient air as a regeneration gas have been investigated. Different types of adsorbents, chosen for their range of water adsorption characteristics, have been employed for the desiccation of a pure air stream. An ideal desiccant should have a high moisture capacity and selectivity and should be regenerable using waste heat and ambient, humid air. The water removal performance of different ion exchange forms of ETS-10 were compared to that of commercial desiccants (such as activated Alumina). Ca-ETS-10 was found to have the highest moisture capacity using a temperature swing of 38–85 °C and an air feed stream of 50–100% relative humidity.