Numerical Analysis on Energy Reduction of an Exhaust-Air-Heat-Recovery Type Air Washer System for Semiconductor Manufacturing Clean Rooms

In recent semiconductor manufacturing clean rooms, air washers are used to remove airborne gaseous contaminants from the outdoor air introduced into a clean room. Meanwhile, there is a large amount of exhaust air from a clean room. From an energy conservation point of view, heat recovery is useful for reducing the outdoor air conditioning load required to maintain a clean room. Therefore it is desirable to recover heat from the exhaust air and use it to cool or heat the outdoor air. In the present study, numerical analysis was conducted to evaluate the recovered heat of an exhaust air heat recovery type air washer system, which is the key part of an energy saving outdoor air conditioning system for semiconductor clean rooms. The present numerical results showed relatively good agreement with the available experimental data.