Condensation of water vapor from humid air inside vertical channels formed by flat plates

Summary: Condensation of humid air is an important process in thermal and process engineering and a subject of many currently research-intensive scientific domains, such as atmospheric water harvesting and seawater desalination. The nature of (water) vapor condensation in the presence of non-condensable gas (NCG) such as air differs significantly from the case with the pure, quiescent vapor condensation. In the literature, simple models that describe the forced flow condensation of water vapor in the presence of air on a series of vertical flat plates are hard to find. Here we present a simple and computationally efficient semi-empirical correlation describing forced flow condensation from humid air inside vertical channels formed by flat plates. The correlation accounts air as a non-condensing gas, different heights of vertical plates, and different thermal-hydraulic parameters. The correlation has been experimentally validated and shows excellent agreement, as 90% of theoretically predicted values are within ±12% of experimental data.