Environmental control system with adsorption based water removal

Abstract

The present invention includes an adsorbent sub-system to concentrate water vapor from an incoming pressurized air stream to a level that allows efficient water condensation with ambient air as the single cooling source. The heat released when condensing the water is transferred to the ambient air, without affecting the cooling capacity of the system.

Description

[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60 / 865,377, which was filed on Nov. 10, 2006. This application also claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60 / 865,577, which was filed on Nov. 13, 2006.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention generally relates to air conditioners and, more particularly, to aircraft environmental control systems.[0003]All aircraft environmental control systems (ECS) designed to cool the cabin environment need to remove excessive atmospheric water. Water in excess of 30 to 50 grains of water per pound of dry air (g / lb) would freeze in the expansion process of air cycle based ECS or could result in unwanted liquid droplets entrained in the cooled air distributed to the cabin.[0004]For a typical prior art high pressure water separation ECS 500, as depicted in FIG. 1a, the water extraction process can be simply represented by the schematics shown in FIG. 1b. The prior art high pressure w...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008]In one aspect of the present invention, a method of removing a supply of water from an air stream comprises the steps of providing a compressed air stream; increasing the moisture content of the compressed air stream such that a super-humidified air stream is provided; positioning the sup...

Problems solved by technology

Water in excess of 30 to 50 grains of water per pound of dry air (g / lb) would freeze in the expansion process of air cycle based ECS or could result in unwanted liquid droplets entrained in the cooled air distributed to the cabin.

The ECS therefore has to be oversized or require higher inlet pressure to cool the cabin load.

That type of system is inherently more complex and may be heavier than the system 500 described above.

Turbine inlet energy is acquired in the form of pressurized airflow by compression of ambient air in a propulsion engine, auxiliary power unit or a number of mechanically driven compressors, all of which require an expensive source of power.

In conditions when maximum cooling capacity is required (such as hot day Climb), this will constitute a capacity penalty, only overcome by the use of additional bleed pressure, motor power, ram air flow, or increased size of the ECS pack, all undesirable for operating economy.

The energy expenditure in the form of cooling capacity or mechanical power needed for condensation of water vapor for the purpose of removal represents a sizeable penalty that has not been totally avoided by current ECS systems.

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