A review of frosting in air-to-air energy exchangers

Air-to-air heat/energy exchangers are often used with heating or cooling systems in buildings, to transfer heat and moisture from an airstream at a high temperature or humidity to an airstream at a low temperature or humidity. Frosting inside heat/energy exchangers is common in cold regions such as Canada and northern Europe, and results in a significant decrease in the performance of the exchangers. The desire to improve the performance and control strategies of heat/energy exchangers under cold air conditions has led to significant research and development equipment over the past 30 years, however, from an energy savings point of view, this problem has not been researched in as much detail. In this paper, a detailed review of the research on frosting and defrosting techniques, specifically in air-to-air heat/energy exchangers is presented. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.