The energy associated with clothes drying makes up 4% of the total residential electrical energy consumption in the US. The cost is high since most clothes dryers use electric resistance heating which is inexpensive but also energy inefficient. State-of-the-art vapor-compression heat pump clothes dryers offer significant energy savings but have limited market penetration in the US. In this work, a new configuration of clothes dryer was studied that utilizes a solid-state thermoelectric heat pump with pumped secondary water loops and conventional fin-and-tube water-to-air heat exchangers. Experimental results are presented for the thermoelectric dryer prototype with a combined energy factor of 6.89 lb_BDW/kWh (specific moisture extraction rate of 1.71 kg_w/kWh) and a dry time of 84 min for a standard load size of 8.45 lb (3.83 kg) with 57.5% starting moisture content. This is a 85% energy efficiency improvement over baseline electric resistance dryers. The efficiency and drying time results achieved are similar to vapor compression heat pump dryers. Compared to previous air-based thermoelectric clothes dryers, the energy efficiency has been increased by 6%, but drying time has been reduced by as much as 47% using secondary pumped loops and separate heat exchangers, which represents a significant advancement in the technology. In addition to the experimental prototype, a model was also developed to study the performance. The model was validated against experimental prototype data and used to identify the range of performance (dry time and efficiency) that could be expected of the design.

与衣物干燥相关的能量占美国住宅总电能消耗的4％。成本很高，因为大多数干衣机使用电阻加热，这种加热既便宜又节能。最先进的蒸汽压缩热泵干衣机可节省大量能源，但在美国的市场渗透率有限。在这项工作中，研究了一种新配置的干衣机，该干衣机利用带有抽水二次水回路的固态热电热泵和传统的翅片管水-空气热交换器。热电干燥机原型的综合能量因数为6.89 lb _BDW / kWh（比湿提取率为1.71 kg _w/ kWh）的干燥时间为84分钟，标准负载尺寸为8.45磅（3.83千克），起始水分含量为57.5％。与基线电阻干燥器相比，这提高了85％的能效。获得的效率和干燥时间结果与蒸气压缩热泵干燥器相似。与以前的空气基热电干衣机相比，能源效率提高了6％，但是使用二次泵送回路和独立的热交换器，干燥时间减少了多达47％，这代表了该技术的重大进步。除了实验原型外，还开发了一个模型来研究性能。该模型已根据实验原型数据进行了验证，并用于确定设计预期的性能范围（干燥时间和效率）。