Numerical investigation of moisture removal and energy consumption of porous body affected by EHD

In this study, the convective drying rate of a porous body driven by Electrohydrodynamics (EHD) was numerically investigated. Two different types of collecting electrode were compared: wall plate collector and segmented plate collector. Firstly, wall plate collector was examined and compared with non-EHD case. The numerical results showed that the moisture removal in the wall plate collector was 5 times higher than the non-EHD case. Secondly, the wall plate collector was replaced with a segmented plate collector. Different arrangements, as well as the various vertical distances between the emitter and the collectors, were examined to find a higher mass transfer. The numerical results showed that moisture removal in the segmented collector in the most appropriate conditions was about 3 times greater than the wall plate collector case. Finally, to gain a more general conclusion, the specific energy consumption (SEC) and pressure loss of all cases were evaluated. The results indicated that the pressure loss has increased greatly by using the EHD-induced flow. Moreover, it was depicted that for the wall plate collector the SEC reached to 8.2 W-h/kg when it decreased to orders of 10−2 W-h/kg for the segmented collector cases.