日本ゼオライト学会　刊行物 Publication of Japan Zeolite Association

Taiyo Kagaku has successfully developed a surfactant template assisted mass production technology of mesoporous silica particularly with two-dimensional hexagonal type pore channels and commercializing under a brand name TMPS (Taiyokagaku Meso Porous Silicas). Designed TMPS are with safe and versatile features and thus, recommended to used in variety of diverse applications such as adsorbent, catalysis support, toiletries, materials for electronic industry, for example, low dielectric materials etc. The current report deals with a specific application of TMPS in a humidity control system due to its unique feature to hold and release a substantial quantity of adsorbed matrices (i.e. vapor of water or organic solvents) in desirable range of relative humidity depending on the application. Such features are attributed to its tunable narrow pore size distribution, wherein the humidity control phenomenon could be constantly regulated. TMPS are hydrothermally stable even in humidified ammonia vapors, since we have improved their durability via doping metals in the silica framework. This led us to apply TMPS as adsorbent material for desiccant type air-conditioners. We have successfully established a design of TMPS desiccant rotor with optimized content nearly 45 wt.% of TMPS embedded in thin sheet of papers and corrugated (systematically folded) in to rotor form of desired diameter depending on the scale of desiccant system. Noteworthy to mention that pore blockage problem was dramatically minimized in corrugated TMPS desiccant rotor system, which corresponds to its least occluded mesopores. Fabricated TMPS desiccant units are capable to perform desorption steps under 50 °C. Overall performance were tested under different environmental locations as a field test for more than one year and results revealed that TMPS desiccant constantly maintained an excellent dehumidification performance without any deviations. This clearly implies that TMPS is the promising candidate as an adsorbent for the desiccant type air-conditioning system.