Introduction

Our “dew point climate generator” is an air conditioning system for producing a flow of air at a preset temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH) values. The system is designed for the open or closed cycle conditioning of confined environments where it is necessary to maintain controlled climatic conditions or to perform rapid climatic variation ramps, such as in museum display cases and in climatic chambers. The outgoing air is also deprived of dust and pollutants.

Technical features

The created climate generator reaches target temperature and relative humidity (T_i, RH_i) conditioning an air flow cooling it to its dew point and varying its RH by heating it up. The dew point saturation is obtained through the passage of the air flow at unknown T and RH, in a bubbler containing controlled and variable T water. At the outlet of the bubbler the flow of air at the dew T (T_r) is saturated (100% RH) and is then heated up to T_i to reach the RH_i [function Δ (T_r – T_i)].The system operates by simply controlling the water T in the bubbler and the T_i (heater). The system does not require sensors to control RH or a condenser-saturator for the regulation of RH, as the bubbler releases the right amount of steam to the air flow. A first prototype was tested with excellent results at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, while a demonstrative version was recently produced.

Possible Applications

• Climatic chambers;
• Museum and exhibiting display cases;
• RH sensors calibration.

Advantages

• High efficiency and conditioning rate;
• Reliability and wide operational range;
• Air purification by dust and pollutants (in both gaseous and solid phases);
• Modular (to operate with high latent thermal loads) and scalable (for small spaces);
• Limited amount of components and low production costs.