Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez

Due Date: June 24th, 2016

Dehumidifier Project
INME 4236-01A: Thermal Science Laboratory
Michael Chvez, T.A

Group A:
Alonso Rodrguez, Michael

840-11-0313

Deds Ocasio, Michael

843-11-2178

Francis Cordero, Francis

801-10-2480

Garca Guzmn, Emmanuel

802-10-2564

Ramos Williams, Daniel L.

801-10-6040

Table of Contents
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Objective ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Materials and Methods .................................................................................................................... 5
Experimental Methods ................................................................................................................ 5
Calculation Procedure ................................................................................................................. 7
Results and Discussion ................................................................................................................... 8
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 8
References ..................................................................................................................................... 11
Appendix ....................................................................................................................................... 13

List of Figures
Figure 1. Dehumidification scheme ................................................................................................ 4
Figure 2. Preliminary Design of the Humidifier ............................................................................ 5
Figure 3. Final Design Experimental set-up ................................................................................... 6
Figure 4 Dehumidifier Process ..................................................................................................... 10

List of Tables
Table 1 Energy Consumption per Equipment ................................................................................. 7
Table 2 Cost of Energy Consumption............................................................................................. 7
Table 3 Water Removed Cost ......................................................................................................... 7
Table 4. Properties measured from the system ............................................................................... 9
Table 5. Sensible Heat Properties ................................................................................................... 9
Table 6 Heat transfer for theoretical correlations ......................................................................... 11
Table 7 Percentage difference of Experimental and theoretical heat transfer .............................. 11

Abstract
A humidifier absorbs air from a designated closed space at one end, takes moisture out of
it to blow it back into the room again. For this to happen the condensation of the water vapor must
occur. For the experiment, a dehumidification system was designed and built with the purpose of
evaluating parameters of a humid environment to understand their correlation to the heat transfer
rate. It was done by obtaining data from the system cooling tubes, upstream and downstream. Then
the data was utilized to obtain the thermodynamic properties to calculate heat transfer rate and the
reduced relative humidity percentage.
The obtained results yielded 198.07kW of heat transfer rate. Also it was determined that
the actual system experimentally reduced average of 11.34% relative humidity, in addition to
obtain a higher humidity reduction, what could be done is to increase the cooling area, a more
powerful pump to increase the mass flow rate, and have a turbulent flow.

Introduction
A dehumidifier is a device that reduces the humidity of the surroundings. Typically is used
in house, as well as is commonly use in industries to reduce the relative humidity levels of certain
products. In the dehumidifying process water vapors condenses because when the moist air stream
is drawn into the dehumidifier and passed over a cold, refrigerated coil, and the air temperature
reaches the dew point temperature (Koronaki et at, 2013), moist air can no longer hold most of the
water vapor, so it condenses on the cold coil surface into water droplets which are collected in the
water tank. When the air cools to the dew point temperature, then dew, fog or clouds begin to form.
At this point the relative humidity is 100%. Relative humidity is a measure of the humidity of air.
This devices can be describe as an air absorber that takes out the moisture of the air, and blows it
back into the room producing cleaner and dryer air. The process of a dehumidifier is presented in
Figure 1 below. As for the flow configuration, counter flow configuration is the most commonly
used flow pattern for a dehumidifier.(Koronaki, et al, 2013).

Figure 1. Dehumidification scheme

Describing this process, moist air enters at state 1 conditions and flows across a cooling coil
through which cool water circulates. Some of the water vapor initially present in the moist air
condenses, and a saturated air exits the dehumidifier section at state 2. In order to calculate the
heat transfer rate of the air it is necessary to make a mass and energy balance (Bassuoni, 2014).
All calculations procedure are assume at steady state. The governing equations of the analysis:
Mass flow rate for dry air:
1 = 2

Equation #1

1 = + 2

Equation #2

Mass flow rate of water:

The mass flow rate of water and air are related by the humidity ratio () which measures the
amount of water vapor in the air mixture. This is expressed by the following equations:
Humidity Ratio:
=

Equation #3

With the previous equations and assuming steady state, an energy rate balanced is perform to
calculate the heat transfer rate of the air.
Heat Transfer rate of air:
= (2 1 )

Equation #4

Objective
The main purpose of this experiment was to design and build a dehumidifier system that is
able to condensate water vapor within the ambient air. Also evaluate the parameters that best
describes the state of a humid environment. Lastly it was intended to help understand how the
parameters affect the heat transfer rate and how it relates to the surface temperature of the cooper
tubes inside the system.

Materials and Methods

Experimental Methods
Initially the design was based on a shell and tube heat exchanger as can be seen in Figure
2 below, in this case for the experiment being water and air flowing, which involves phase change
of the moist air as it condensates when flowing through the small tubes, contrary to a regular one
in which the heat exchange is between water only flowing through the pipes. Also the correlations
for a shell & tube were used as an analogy, because of the similarity between them. The
correlations used were Churchill & Bernstein and Hilpert, in which the two of them were
compared. The most practical correlation was the Hilpert because it was the one that approached
better to the experimental value.
After analyzing on how to construct the final design of the humidifier, some changes were
made because in our case it was practically to use a cylinder rather than a cube to accelerate the
manufacturing process because for the cube was necessary to cut the panels and assemble them
contrary to the tube that was already enclosed. Some other changes were made to the structure
such as the piping position and foam cooler, which can be seen in Figure 3 that shows the final
design.

Figure 2. Preliminary Design of the Humidifier

The final design was constructed with: six straight 9.5mm diameter and 686mm long
cooper straight pipes attached to an acrylic tube with a diameter of 76mm and 660mm long, heat
5

gun blower without the resistances, a 600 liters/hour water submersible pump, 6.1m long and
9.5mm diameter PVC pipes to connect the cooper pipes to the submersible pump with a PVC
fitting to distribute the fluid from one to six lines, a styrofoam cooler and an aluminum foil
collection plate to collect the condensed water to measure it . All the mentioned components can
be seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Final Design Experimental set-up

For the designed configuration the cost of materials is listed in the table below.
Material
Copper per ft
PVC Fittings
Foam Cooler
Silicon tubes per ft
Tie Wraps
Acrylic tube
Water Pump
Wood sheet
Epoxy
Fan
Total

Qty
14
3
1
20
1
1
1
1
1
1
44

Price
$1.67
$1.09
$5.55
$0.29
$1.95
$20.00
$13.38
$3.59
$5.00
$20.00
$101.92

Using the data for energy consumption in Puerto Rico and the power consumption of the
equipment the cost of operation was calculated in order to know the cost of condensate a liter of
water. The total condensate water was measure using a beaker with a resolution of 5% of the
measure. The condensate water was 50mL in 50 min, as is seen in the Figure A-1. In the
following tables are listed the cost of energy consumption for all different amount of time and
the cost per liter condensate.

Table 1 Energy Consumption per Equipment

Energy Consumption per Equipment
Fan
40
Water Pump
10
Total
50

W
W
W

Table 2 Cost of Energy Consumption

Cost of Energy Consumption
Per Hour

0.0016

Per Day

0.04

Per Year

13.93

$KW/h
$KW/h
$KW/h

Table 3 Water Removed Cost

$

Water removed cost

0.11

$/Liter

Wet, dry bulb temperatures and relative humidity measurements were taken at entrance
and exit of the system with a thermocouple mounted in a digital thermometer to measure the
relative humidity respectively.
The assumptions made for the system included: the surface temperature of the cooper pipes
( ) was assumed to be the average of the inlet and outlet temperatures of the cold water, the
temperature for the air in the pipe ( ) was the average temperature between the inlet and
outlet of the air. The characteristic length ( ) was the length of the cooper pipes inside the tunnel.
Lastly it was assumed that the behavior of the system as similar enough to a shell and tube heat
exchanger that the same analysis could be used neglecting the face change of the water vapor.
Calculation Procedure
To perform the respective calculations for the experiment EES was used to determine
various properties such as density of air, viscosity, Prandtl number, and saturated pressure for
water vapor. After fixing the inlet and outlet states for the system, the experimental heat transfer
was calculated using the difference in enthalpy. The thermal conductivity of air was calculated in
7

order to determine the heat transfer coefficient for Churchill-Bernstein and Hilpert correlations.
To calculate these values, the following equations were used:
Experimental heat transfer:
= (2 1 )

Equation #4

Equation #5

Reynolds number:
=

Nusselt number Churchill-Bernstein correlation:

.5

= 0.30 +

0.62

1/3

1
2 4
3

4
5 5
8

Equation #6

[1 + (
) ]
282000

0.4
[1 + ( ) ]

Nusselt number Hilpert correlation:

= 1/3

Equation #7

The heat transfer coefficients were calculated for each correlation using their respective Nusselt
number.
Heat transfer coefficient:
=

Equation #8

The heat transfer rates were calculated for each correlation using their respective heat transfer
coefficient as well.
Heat transfer rate:
= ( )

Equation #9

After calculating the experimental and theoretical heat transfer rates, the values were
compared using the difference percentage equation.

Results and Discussion

In order to determine the quantity of moist removed from the air is necessary to measure
the properties of the fluid in the inlet and outlet of the system. For the system designed, the
properties in the inlet and outlet measured was the dry bulb and wet bulb temperature. Looking in
8

Table 1, the relative humidity at the outlet was higher than the inlet, this agrees with the theory
that the relative humidity rises when air is cool down (Shapiro, 2010). Also, this result was
expected because for our configuration the sensible heat do not was added, this means that the
property at the exit was very close to the condensation values and a small amount of sensible heat
was added to the fluid. In order to obtain a comparable relative humidity is necessary to add the
sensible heat. For the analysis we assume that this process occurs and the temperature reached was
the same temperature of the inlet with the dew point temperature of the outlet property. In the
table below is shown the measured values from the inlet and outlet.
Table 4. Properties measured from the system
TDB (C)
23.4

Inlet Properties
TWB (C)
Rel. Hum. %
17.7
57.41

TDB (C)
12.2

Outlet Properties
TWB (C)
Rel. Hum. %
11.2
89

For the sensible heat added ideally the relative humidity was 46%, 11.34% less than the
relative humidity at the Inlet. In the table below is enlisted the assumptions and the result.
Table 5. Sensible Heat Properties
Sensible Heat Ideally added
TDB (C)
TWB (C)
Rel. Hum. %
23.4
15.875
46.066

The measured properties and the assumed sensible heat property was plotted in the
psychrometric chart to obtain an overall visualization of the dehumidifying process. Is necessary
to notice that the stage 2 do not represent the maximum value of relative humidity reached, this is
because the properties was measure at the exit and the data that represent the condensation process
do not was taken in order to simplify the analysis and the lack of resources. In the graph below the
direction of the process is denoted by the blue arrow, being initiated at the higher red dot.
Once having the measure temperature of dry bulb and wet bulb, and the relative humidity,
using the psychometric chart was possible to determine the humidity ratio at both locations, inward
and outward. For the inlet flow the humidity ratio was 0.01032 kg/kg and for the outlet flow the
humidity ratio was 0.007863 kg/kg. The mass flow rate of air entering the cylinder was calculated
using the fan air volumetric flow rate and the specific volume at the inlet, obtaining a value of
0.01122 kg/s. Then it was proceeded to calculate the mass flow rate of water that condensates
9

from the water vapor in the entering air. Using the calculated mass flow rate of air and the
difference in humidity ratio, obtained with the psychometric charts, the value for condensate water
mass flow rate was 0.09928 kg/hr. Although the amount of water being extracted from the air flow
may seem small, it was a significant portion of the total water vapor entering the system; the
removed water represented a 23.8% decreases of the water vapor in the flow thru the dehumidifier.
To enhance a better performance this system is more suitable for hot and humid climates, resulting
higher ambient air temperature and moisture content (Xiao, et al, 2011).

Figure 4 Dehumidifier Process

As all heat transfer system is necessary to determine the heat load removed from the fluid
treated. The calculated value of heat transfer was compared with the correlations of heat exchanger
used in the shell and tube experiment. This two correlations was the Hilpert approach and the
Churchill and Bernstein. Even though this correlations are for process wer change in phase of the
fluid does not occur, the obtained values of heat transfer has 22.17% of difference for the Hilpert
and 29.7% for the Churchill and Bernstein correlation (Mohamed et al, 2011). For the first
approach this values was consider close to the experimental values and bring a starting point for
10

further analysis. The reason this comparison was made with this correlation was the difficulty to
find a correlation for a similar configuration. In the table below is listed the heat load calculated
with the correlations and the experimental values.

Table 6 Heat transfer for theoretical correlations

Hilpert
Churchill

Reynolds
1781.953
1781.953

Prandtl
0.7298
0.7298

Nusselt
20.125
21.726

h (W/m2*K)
0.132
0.142

Q (W)
-247.466
-267.151

Table 7 Percentage difference of Experimental and theoretical heat transfer

Q (W)

Experimental
Hilpert
Churchill &
Bernstein

198.068105
247.466029
267.151449

Percentage
Difference %

22. 17
29.7

Conclusion
During the experiment a dehumidifier was built, it was capable of removing 11.34% of
relative humidity from the air. This extraction of water vapor air represented a loss of 198.07W.
The obtained heat transfer was comparable to the theoretical expected values showing a difference
percent of 22.17% for the Hilpert correlation and 29.7% for the Churchill-Bernstein correlation.
Although this reduction of relative humidity may seem low compared to the desired 20%
reduction, it represent a 24% removal of water vapor from the humid air stream. The humidity
ratio at the inlet of the system was 0.01032 kgw/kga while at the exit it was 0.007863 kgw/kga.
Which means that the humidity ratio decreased by 27.0%. The dry bulb temperature at the inlet
was 23.40C and at the outlet was 12.20C, this represents a decreasing temperature of 47.9%.
To increase the performance of the dehumidifier, it is suggested to increase the heat transfer
area by adding fins on the outside of the cooper and/or increase the amount of cooper tube. Also
the heat transfer coefficient of the air could be improved by increasing the turbulence of the flow
by adding some piece of material at the end of the fan. Another way of improving the performance
would be to better insulate both the PVC connections and the dehumidifier itself.
11

The structure of the dehumidifier allows for the tubes inside the shell to be connected either
in series or parallel with the water pump. It would be recommended to carry out experiments in
both of these combinations and a hybrid which uses a combination of parallel-series connections
to evaluate how the performance of the system is affected.

References
[1] Bassuoni, M. (2014). A simple analytical method to estimate all exit parameters of a
cross-flow air dehumidifier using liquid desiccant. Journal of Advanced Research, 5(2), 175-182.
[2] El-Shazly, A., Al-Zahrani, A., Alhamed, Y., & Nosier, S. (2012). Productivity
intensification of humidificationdehumidification desalination unit by using pulsed water flow
regime. Desalination, 293, 53-60.
[3] Gao, W., Liu, J., Cheng, Y., & Zhang, X. (2012). Experimental investigation on the
heat and mass transfer between air and liquid desiccant in a cross-flow dehumidifier. Renewable
Energy, 37(1), 117-123.
[4] Koronaki, I., Christodoulaki, R., Papaefthimiou, V., & Rogdakis, E. (2013).
Thermodynamic analysis of a counter flow adiabatic dehumidifier with different liquid desiccant
materials. Applied Thermal Engineering, 50(1), 361-373.
[5] Moran, M., Shapiro, H., Boettner, D., and Bailey, M. (2010). Fundamentals of
Engineering Thermodynamics, (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., NY), Chap. 12, pp. 746-747.
[6] Woods, J., & Kozubal, E. (2013). A desiccant-enhanced evaporative air conditioner:
Numerical model and experiments. Energy Conversion and Management, 65, 208-220.
[7] Xiao, F., Ge, G., & Niu, X. (2011). Control performance of a dedicated outdoor air
system adopting liquid desiccant dehumidification. Applied Energy, 88(1), 143-149.
[8] Zhang, L., & Huang, S. (2011). Coupled heat and mass transfer in a counter flow hollow
fiber membrane module for air humidification. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer,
54(5-6), 1055-1063.
[9] Mohamed, Ali. Zeitoun, & Nuhait.(2011). Forced convection heat transfer over
horizontal triangular cylinder in cross flow. International Journal of Thermal Sciences, 109-114

12

Appendix
Appendix A: Nomenclature
Table A-1: List of Variables
T

Temperature

Pressure

Density

Thermal Conductivity

Viscosity

Pr

Prandtl Number

Volumetric flowrate

Area

Velocity

Mass flow rate

Heat Transfer

Heat Transfer coefficient

Re

Reynolds Number

Nu

Nusselt Number

13

Appendix B: Example of Calculations

Fan area:

= (
)
2

0.0381 2
= (
) = 0.001142
2

Fan volumetric flow:

v =
v = 0.001142

8.4
= 0.009573 /

Acrylic tube total area:

2
= (
)
2

0.0699 2
= (
) = 0.0038372
2

Cooper tubes area (6 tubes):

2
= 6 (
)
2

0.0095 2
= 6(
) = 0.0004252
2

Heat transfer area:

= 2

0.00952
= 2
3.81 = 0.1142
2

Effective cross area for air:

=
= 0.0038372 0.0004252 = 0.003412
Air velocity in tube:
=

0.0095773 /
=
= 2.81/
0.0034122
14

Water vapor pressure:

1 = 1 1
1 = 2.879 0.574 = 1.65
Air mass flow rate in for average values:
=
=

0.0095773 /
= 0.0112 /
0.85323 /

Condensed mass flow rate water:

= (1 2 )
= 0.0112/ (0.01032/ 0.007863/)
3600

= 0.0992/

= 0.0000275
Water vapor mass flow entering the system:
, = = (0.010328

) (0.01122
) = 0.000119

, = 0.0001179

3600

|
| = 0.4168

Water vapor mass flow leaving the system:

, = , = 0.4168
, = 0.3175

0.0992

Percent of water vapor removed:

% = 100
100 = 23.81%

(0.4168
)

(0.3175

Experimental heat transfer:

= (2 1 )
32.119 49.765
= (

) = 198.1

15

Reynolds Number:
=
= 1.213/3 2.806/

0.0095
= 1781.95
1.815105 /

Nusselt Number Churchill-Bernstein:

= 0.30 +

0.62 .5 1/3
1
2 4
3

4
5 5
8

[1 + (
) ]
282000

0.4
[1 + ( ) ]
.5

= 0.30 +

1/3

0.62(1781.95) (0.7298)
1
2 4
3

[1 + (

4
5 5
8

1781.95
) ] = 21.73
282000

0.4
[1 + (0.7298) ]

Nusselt Number Hilpert:

= 1/3
= 0.683 1781.950.466 0.72980.33 = 20.12

Convection heat transfer coefficient with Churchill-Bernstein:

21.73 0.02497 /
=
= 0.142 /2
3.81
=

Heat Transfer rate with Churchill-Bernstein:

= ( )
= (0.142/2 )(0.1142 ) (1.30 17.80 ) = 267.15

16

Convection heat transfer coefficient with Hilpert:

(20.12)(0.02497 / )
=
= 0.132 /2
3.81
=

Heat Transfer rate with Hilpert:

= ( )
= (0.132/2 )(0.1142 ) (1.30 17.80 ) = 247.47
Difference Percentages:
% = |

% = |

| 100%
+
2

198.1 267.15
| 100% = 29.7%
198.1 + 267.15
2

% = |

% = |

| 100%
+
2

198.1 247.47
| 100% = 22.17%
198.1 + 247.47
2

17

Figure B-1 Condensate Water

18