Monday, April 25, 2022

Drying Laundry Under Vacuum

Because when i moved the exhaust pipe of the drier was clogged with condensed water in the basement, for years, i reinvented drying laundry by using a heat pump as condenser and heater and recirculating the dry jot air saving energy, by modifying a window AC (because i saw the water that is coming when the window AC is working).

Re-invented because after i saw that only years before such driers that included a heat pump were commercially available, using a third less energy and not requiring an exhaust pipe. It's faster and especially cleaner since the air that goes in the drier does not come from the room but it's the exhaust that is dried and heated inside the heat pump and recirculated and some of the heat in winter time heats the room instead of being evacuated outside with the exhaust. However i am tired to uninstall and re-install it every year when the inspection come and now that the pipe is fixed in the summer it probably works as well in normal mode, while evacuating the heat outside.

Coincidentally i've been dealing these days with car's AC and saw a video that shows that moisture can be extracted from the AC system using a vacuum pump. Because of water's properties, under enough vacuum (low pressure) it may boil at room temperature or even less. This principle is used a lot in concentrating juices, where the water is removed again with a vacuum pump, without much heating thus without destroying nutrients though some heat is applied, because by boiling, the juice looses heat and it may even freeze. In this diagram fast drying (boiling) occurs anywhere right of the curve in the pink area.
So i made a connection in my mind, but instead of re-inventing anything i went and did some searches first and found out it was possible, it requires much less energy, again, no exhaust, however none available commercially yet. Currently around 6% of household electric energy and 2% of household gas consumption in the US is done by drying.

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