The use of metal piece additives to enhance heat transfer rate through an unconsolidated adsorbent bed

The effects of metal piece additives on effective thermal conductivity and diffusivity of an unconsolidated adsorbent bed in which adsorbent is silica gel were investigated. The metal piece additives were copper, brass, aluminum and stainless steel with two different sizes as 1.0–2.8 mm and 2.8–4.75 mm. The effective thermal conductivity and diffusivity of the mixed bed were predicted by comparison of the experimental results with the solution of dimensionless heat conduction equation for the bed. The performed experiments showed that the addition 15wt% of aluminum pieces with sizes between 1.0 and 2.8 mm enhances the effective thermal diffusivity and conductivity of a pure silica gel bed by 157% and 242%, respectively.