Experimental and predictive study on the performance and energy consumption characteristics for the regeneration of activated alumina assisted by ultrasound

Activated alumina used in dehumidification should be regenerated at more than 110 °C temperature, resulting in excessive energy consumption. Comparative experiments were conducted to study the feasibility and performance of ultrasonic assisted regeneration so as to lower the regeneration temperature and raise the efficiency. The mean regeneration speed, regeneration degree, and enhanced rate were used to evaluate the contribution of ultrasound in regeneration. The effective moisture diffusivity and desorption apparent activation energy were calculated by theoretical models, revealed the enhanced mechanism caused by ultrasound. Also, we proposed some specific indexes such as unit energy consumption and energy-saving ratio to assess the energy-saving characteristics of this process. The unit energy consumption was predicted by artificial neural network (ANN), and the recovered moisture adsorption of activated alumina was measured by the dynamic adsorption test. Our analysis illustrates that the introduction of power ultrasound in the process of regeneration can reduce the unit energy consumption and improve the recovered moisture adsorption, the unit energy consumption was decreased by 68.69% and the recovered moisture adsorption was improved by 16.7% under 180 W power ultrasound compared with non-ultrasonic assisted regeneration at 70 °C when initial moisture adsorption was 30%. Meanwhile, an optimal regeneration condition around the turning point could be obtained according to the predictive results of ANN, which can minimize the unit energy consumption. Moreover, it was found that a larger specific surface area of activated alumina induced by ultrasound contributed to a better recovered moisture adsorption.