An experimental study on the performance of porous PES and PC hollow fiber membranes on air humidification process

A hollow fiber membrane contactor system with co-current flow configuration is proposed. Two different Polyethersulfone (PES) and Polycarbonate (PC) hollow fiber membranes were fabricated and their performance in air humidification for air conditioning was investigated. For different air dry bulb temperature (۲۵°C, ۳۰°C, ۳۵°C) and inlet air relative humidity (۲۰%, ۳۰%, and ۴۰%), the performance of the membrane system was experimentally investigated. The variations of outlet air dry bulb temperature and water vapor flux for two different hollow fiber membranes with respect to different incoming air dry bulb temperature and air relative humidity were studied. The results of this experiment show that the structure of membrane has an important effect on the outlet air temperature and water vapor flux in the humidification process. PES membranes have higher surface porosity compared to the PC membranes. The results also showed that by increasing the inlet air temperature at constant air relative humidity, water vapor flux increased.

Keywords:

Humidification , Polyethersulfone (PES) , Polycarbonate (PC) , Hollow fiber membrane , Membrane contactor