Study on a high-performance photocatalytic-Trombe wall system for space heating and air purification

Bendong Yu, Jingxin Hou, Wei He, Shanshan Liu, Zhongting Hu, Jie Ji, Hongbing Chen and Gang Xu

Applied Energy, 2018, vol. 226, issue C, 365-380

Abstract: This article proposes a novel solar gradient-utilization photocatalytic-Trombe wall system that can realize the dual functions of space heating and removal of indoor formaldehyde. A photocatalytic layer is coated on the internal surface of the glazing cover in conventional Trombe wall system. Under solar radiation, ultraviolet light is absorbed by the photocatalytic layer to activate the photocatalytic oxidation of formaldehyde, and the rest of visible and infrared parts are collected by the absorber plate to heat indoor environment. In this article, firstly, an experimental testing set-up of photocatalytic-Trombe wall was constructed and a full-day experiment was conducted to investigate the performances of air heating and formaldehyde degradation. Secondly, a coupled kinetic, thermal and mass model was derived and verified by the experimental data. Finally, adopting the established model, the seasonal energy saving analysis and economic analysis in Hefei were conducted. Results are: (1) Based on the experimental results, the daily air heating efficiency was 0.351, and daily generated clean air and degradation mass of formaldehyde were 164.0 m3/(m2 day) and 100.0 mg/(m2 day), respectively; (2) Experimental results confirmed the model accuracy within 8%; (3) Compared with the total thermal load reduction of 246.9 MJ/m2 in heating seasons for conventional Trombe wall, photocatalytic-Trombe wall not only has a higher value of 309.9 MJ/m2, but also an additional valuable total generated clean air of 4764.9 m3/m2; (4) Photocatalytic-Trombe wall system takes about 12.1 years to recoup the initial investment only considering the saving electrical by indoor space heating.

Keywords: Trombe wall; Photocatalytic oxidation; Thermal behavior; Air purification; Space heating; Solar energy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918308316
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:226:y:2018:i:c:p:365-380

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2018.05.111

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().