Numerical Investigations on the Transient Heat and Mass Transfer of Triangular Honeycomb Reactor

In this study, a triangular honeycomb reactor using zeolite 13X-H 2 O working pairs is developed to investigate the reactor thermal performance. Also, a three-dimensional transient heat and mass transfer model has been used to predict the adsorption and desorption processes occurring in the open honeycomb reactor. The built model has been validated by the experimental results, and a close agreement is observed for adsorption and desorption heat and mass transfer processes. The mean sum of the percent errors of charging air temperature, discharging air temperature and humidity are 0.6%, 8.91% and 7.96%, respectively. The obtained reactor thermal efficiency of simulation and experimental results are 19.57% and 21.93%, respectively. Moreover, the air velocity and water concentration distribution, heat and mass flux variations during desorption and adsorption processes are visually presented. The results show that the side areas of triangle channel both have higher and quicker moisture desorption ability at charging period and quicker moisture adsorption ability at discharging period than that of triangle corner areas. However, the cumulative thermal energy in charging and discharging both present low values, which can be optimized by the honeycomb structural and operating parameters for improving reactor performance in further research