Research and Analysis on Performance of Purified Air Conditioning
Mingming Sun
Zhejiang DunAn Artificial Environment Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, China
Keywords: purified air conditioning; purification efficiency; energy consumption
Abstract: In order to study the performance of purified air conditioning, the author designed an air conditioning with
purification function. On the basis of the original air conditioning, honeycomb activated carbon filter and
precious metal room-temperature catalytic filter are added to the purified air conditioning. We have
analysed the purification performance, refrigeration performance and power consumption of the conditioner,
which provides references for the design and energy consumption analysis of purified air conditioner.
1 INTRODUCTION
Indoor environment refers to the small space made
of natural or artificial materials, and it is a small
environment which is relatively separated from the
external environment. The architectural indoor
environment is the most important and most
common. A lot of chemical composite materials are
used during the modern interior decoration, such as
man-made sheet, wallpaper, paint, composite
ceiling, furniture and interior soft decoration. These
elements emit a large number of poisonous and
harmful gaseous pollutants continuously, including
formaldehyde, benzene, xylene and VOCs (Volatile
Organic Compounds). With the development of
economy and people's living standard, urban
residents spend more than 80% of their time indoors.
IAQ (Indoor Air Quality) affects not only the
comfort and health of human body, but also the
working efficiency of indoor personnel prominently.
A study by Harvard University shows that air quality
in office has a significant impact on work efficiency.
Good air quality helps to improve the ability to
thinking, understanding, memorizing, learning and
decision-making. The study found that people in the
office with a good ventilation condition and a low
concentration of pollutants were 61 percent more
efficient than in a traditional office. With the
improvement of healthy and environmental
awareness, the indoor air pollution has aroused great
attention in China (GB/T 18801-2015, 2015).
Relevant information from the WHO (World
Health Organization) showed that the number of
deaths due to indoor environmental pollution was
about 2.8 million per year all over the world (GB/T
18883-2002, 2002).
The American Cancer Society studies founds that
indoor air pollution had an great direct link with
urban residents' health, and that more than 4%
diseases in the world had a direct relationship with
indoor pollution. It also indicated that the number of
deaths from asthma attacks caused by indoor air
pollution was more than 300 thousand every year,
40% of which are children (Guo, 2012).
In such a grim situation of air pollution, people
attach more and more importance to problems
related to IAQ. China's environmental protection
industry is also taking advantage of development.
The indoor air purification device began to rise,
comprising air purifier, purified household air
conditioner, purified central air conditioner, fresh air
unit and so on. At present, the main purification
technology for treating gaseous pollutants on the
market is activated carbon adsorption, which
belongs to physical adsorption. This technology has
low purification efficiency and short service life. It
needs to be replaced after a period of use, increasing
after-sales costs and maintenance costs.
In this study, the purified air conditioning unit
has been developed independently. And the
experimental research and performance comparison
are carried out mainly aiming at air purification
capacity, service life, and energy consumption.
264
Sun, M.
Research and Analysis on Performance of Purified Air Conditioning.
DOI: 10.5220/0008188602640267
In The Second International Conference on Materials Chemistry and Environmental Protection (MEEP 2018), pages 264-267
ISBN: 978-989-758-360-5
Copyright
c
2019 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
2 INTRODUCTION OF PURIFIED
AIR CONDITIONING
The purified air conditioning unit adds air
purification function section, compared with original
air conditioning unit. The unit mainly includes the
panel, air inlet, air outlet, initial effect nylon filter,
modified honeycomb activated carbon filter,
precious metal room-temperature catalytic filter,
surface cooler, water tray, frequency conversion fan
and so on. The design air volume is 2000m
3
/h, the
cooling capacity is 11.6kW, and the external
pressure is 120Pa.The structure of the unit is shown
in the following chart (Figure 1 and 2).
Figure 1: Structure diagram of purified air conditioning
unit.
Figure 2: Appearance diagram of purified air conditioning
unit.
2.1 Modified Honeycomb Activated
Carbon Filter
Modified honeycomb activated carbon material uses
honeycomb activated carbon composites as matrix,
and its purification ability is improved by chemical
modification. This material combines physical and
chemical adsorption, with high purification
efficiency and low desorption capacity. Compared
with conventional activated carbon particle and
activated carbon fabric, this material has the
advantages of long purification life. The material is
integrated, so its strength is greater and it is harder to
break and leak powder. The material has through-
hole structure, which makes the resistance very
small. The modified honeycomb activated carbon
material can effectively remove benzene and other
TVOCs, abnormal flavor and odor.
2.2 Precious Metal Room-temperature
Catalytic Filter
Precious metals generally refer to metals such as
gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium,
osmium and ruthenium (JG/T 294-2010, 2012).
Gold, platinum, palladium and other precious metals
have good chemical stability and catalytic activity,
and they have excellent performance for catalytic
decomposing formaldehyde at room temperature.
Precious metals are not used as purifying
materials directly, but as materials for purification
by loading on carriers. There are two forms of
carrier: one is the ceramic honeycomb, also called
cordierite, the other is the metal honeycomb
winding, like Fe-Cr-Al heat-resistant steel (Jin et al.,
2007).
The precious metal room-temperature catalytic
material is supported by ceramic honeycomb, whose
surface is loaded with precious metal material. At
room temperature, the material can decompose
formaldehyde to CO
2
and H
2
O under the action of
precious metal catalysts, as shown in the Figure 3.
The purification efficiency of precious metal room-
temperature catalytic material is very high and
thorough, without secondary pollution. Because the
material plays the role of chemical catalysis, the
purification effect of material is long-lasting and
durable.
Figure 3: Principle diagram of precious metal room-
temperature catalysis.
3 EXPERIMENTAL METHODS
AND RESULTS
3.1 Primary Purification Efficiency
Primary purification efficiency is the ratio of the
difference between the pollutant concentration of
upstream and downstream to the pollutant
concentration of windward, as shown equation
below. In reference to JG/T294-2010 Test of
Research and Analysis on Performance of Purified Air Conditioning
265
Pollutant Cleaning Performance of Air Cleaner
(Shao et al, 2016), the test of primary purification
efficiency is carried out at the air tunnel test system.

(1)
P — the primary purification efficiency.
C
1
—the pollutant concentration of upstream
C
2
— the pollutant concentration of downstream.
The experimental conditions are that the ambient
temperature is 23±2, the relative humidity is
50±10%, and the concentration of the upper air side
is 3S±0.1S (S is the concentration limit specified in
GB/T 18883-2002 Indoor Air Quality Standard
(Zhang et al., 1999). The concentration limit of
formaldehyde is 0.10mg/m
3
and that of TVOC is
0.60mg/m
3
.). The primary purification efficiency of
formaldehyde and TVOC are tested on the
purification function section. The results are shown
as Table 1.
Table 1: Results of the primary purification efficiency.
Project
Test
Results
Standard
Requirements
Primary purification
efficiency of
formaldehyde
76.6%
≥50%
Primary purification
efficiency of TVOC
62.3%
≥50%
The primary purification efficiency of
formaldehyde is 76.6% and that of TVOC is 62.3%.
According to JG/T294-2010, the primary
purification efficiency should be more than 50%,
and the above two items are much higher than the
standard values.
3.2 CADR and CCM Values of
Formaldehyde
The Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR value) is a
parameter of the purification capacity for the target
pollutant, indicating the rate of air purifier to provide
clean air.
The Cumulate Clean Mass (CCM value) is a
parameter of cumulative purification capacity for the
target pollutant. It indicates the total mass of the
target pollutant when the CADR converges to 50%
of the initial value. In reference to GB/T18801-2015
Air Cleaner (Zhu and Xiao, 2012), there are four
levels of CCM value in Table 2.
Table 2: Evaluation of CCM value.
Grade
CCM value
F1
300 mg ≤ CCM < 600 mg
F2
600 mg ≤ CCM < 1000 mg
F3
1000 mg ≤ CCM < 1500 mg
F4
1500 mg ≤ CCM
The tests of CADR and CCM are carried out in
the environment cabin test system under the same
conditions as in the previous section. According to
the gradual incremental injection method prescribed
in GB/T18801-2015, the CADR values of
formaldehyde were tested when the cumulative
injection volume reached 300mg, 600mg, 1000mg,
1500mg, 2100mg, 2800mg, 3600mg, 4500mg,
5500mg……, respectively. Originally planned, the
test would be finished when the CADR value of
formaldehyde dropped to 50% of the initial value.
However, the CADR value remained at a stable level
during the test, because of the steady purification
performance of the product. The test was carried out
for 4 months, and the CADR value of the product
was still not significantly reduced, so the test was
terminated. The results are shown as Figure 4.
Figure 4: Test results of CADR and CCM values of
formaldehyde.
The square points in the diagram represent the
total amount of formaldehyde treated after each
incremental injection, and the last value is the CCM
value of formaldehyde. The round points represent
the CADR values of formaldehyde tested after each
incremental injection.
The initial CADR value of formaldehyde is
367.1 m
3
/h and it is 350.9 m
3
/h when the test ends.
The final CADR value is 95.6% (much higher than
50%) of the initial value, without significant decline
keeping between 340 and 380 m
3
/h. During the
whole lifetime test, the total formaldehyde is 46g,
which is 30 times higher than that of the F4 level in
GB/T 18801-2015. The corresponding CCM of F4
level is 1.5g.
MEEP 2018 - The Second International Conference on Materials Chemistry and Environmental Protection
266
3.3 Cooling Capacity and Energy
Consumption
In order to study the effect of purification function
on the performance of air conditioning units, we test
the cooling capacity and power consumption of the
units, through frequency conversion controlling the
air volume at 2000 m
3
/h and the external pressure at
120Pa. The experimental conditions are that the air
dry-ball-temperature is 27, the air wet-ball-
temperature is 19.5, the inlet-water-temperature is
7, and the temperature difference between the inlet
and outlet water is 5. The results are shown as
Table 3.
Table 3: Test results of cooling capacity and energy
consumption.
Unit without
Purifying Filters
Unit Installed
Purifying Filters
1951 m
3
/h
1970 m
3
/h
121 Pa
122 Pa
12154 W
12222 W
301 W
355 W
Under the same conditions of air volume and
external pressure, after installed the purifying filters,
the cooling capacity of the air conditioning unit is
basically unchanged and the energy consumption is
increased by 17.9%.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The purified air conditioning unit adds air
purification function section to the original common
air conditioning unit, including modified honeycomb
carbon filter and precious metal room-temperature
catalytic filter. It can purify formaldehyde, TVOC
and other gaseous pollutants and provide
comfortable, healthy, clean air. At the same time,
there is a certain increase in resistance and energy
consumption of the unit. The concrete results are as
follows:
1) The air purification function section has high
purification effect on formaldehyde and TVOC. The
primary purification efficiency of formaldehyde is
76.6%, and that of TVOC is 62.3%. Both are higher
than the standard values 50%.
2) The initial CADR value of formaldehyde is
367.1 m
3
/h. The final CADR value is 367.1 m
3
/h,
which is much higher than 50% of the initial value.
3) The purification performance of the air
purification functional section is stable, so it has
long purification life, low replacement frequency
and low running cost. During the whole lifetime test,
the total formaldehyde is 46g, which is 30 times
higher than that of the F4 level in GB/T 18801-2015.
And the final CADR value is 95.6% (much higher
than 50%) of the initial value, without significant
decline keeping between 340 and 380 m
3
/h. The
CCM value of formaldehyde is far greater than 46g.
4) Compared with the common air conditioning
unit, under the same conditions of air volume and
external pressure, the cooling capacity of the air
conditioning unit installed the purifying filters is
basically unchanged and the energy consumption is
increased by 17.9%
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