Experimental study of the flow characteristics in a falling film liquid desiccant dehumidifier

Abstract

The flow characteristics play great role in determining the heat and mass transfer performance of a falling film liquid desiccant dehumidifier. Even though there have been many studies reporting the flow behaviors in different devices and fields, the fundamental researches of the film flow characteristics in a liquid desiccant dehumidifier were still very limited, especially for experiment. Therefore, in the present work, a simple single-channel test rig was established for observing and describing the flow characteristics in the dehumidifier. The impacts of various variables on the flow morphology, coverage ratio, and minimum wetting rate have been analyzed in detail. A correlation was developed to predict the minimum wetting rate of the solution flow. The research results can further verify the correctness of a previous simulation work as well.