Looking at our current clothes dryers, I can't help but think there's a way to modernise them.

I propose adding thermoelectric and vacuum elements to the dryer to increase efficiency.

The dryer door would have to form a tighter seal than conventional dryers. The entire exterior would be thermoelectic, so that it will be cool to the touch-- all nearby heat will be sucked into the dryer.

Because conventional dryers do not employ thermoelectric technology, I suspect the new dryers will be at least 4 times as energy efficient at delivering heat to the clothing.

However another interesting feature, which should serve to make the dryer even more effective, are the vacuum elements.

As clothes dry, they are constantly giving up moisture. It behooves us to move this moisture away from the clothing to draw more moisture out.

I believe this can be best accomplished by creating a three stage thermoelectic intake/outake exchange.

As hot wet air exits, it is passed next to a thermoelectric plate, which tranfers the heat to double-heated ambient air about the enter the clothing chamber.

Next, the once-cooled wet air interacts with the once-heated ambient air, and finally, the twice-cooled wet air, which should have some condensation by now, will be cooled by ambient air.

The water from the wet air will drip into a recepticle, and cool dry air will be expelled from the dryer to mix with ambient air. The lions share of the heat will be redirected at the clothes. If the water expelled is clean enough to drink, it would be a funny selling point in the commercial.

Alternatively, if the exhaust air gets too hot for condensation, it can be rerouted away from the dryer's to minimize the humidity of the dryer's air intake.

There will have to be 2 fuzzguards at least-- one right in front of the vacuum, and one for the air intake. The dryer will likely need to be serviced more often than a conventional dryer, but the reduced energy consumption and faster drying times should more than make up for a yearly professional servicing.
-- Madai, Oct 29 2004

This might be something for the space station.
-- ldischler, Oct 29 2004


It be nice to lower the pressure, but how?
-- romanmar, Oct 29 2004


By restricting the airflow in. It will be a very weak vacuum, admittedly, because I believe replacing wet air with dry air will be more effective than a strong vacuum. I imagine the air intake will be narrow, and the vacuum pump will have to work hard as thus add more heat to the system.
-- Madai, Oct 29 2004


Why have any thermal components at all? You could simply have a vacuum pump that removes 99% of the air, at which point the water in the clothes would boil off by itself. Heat, however, would be transferred from the clothes (as water evaporates) to the air outside the vacuum pump (as water condenses). You could, of course, recycle this heat back into the drum with a simply heat pipe going from the condensation coils to the fins inside the dryer.
-- EdgeOfEpsilon, Feb 07 2005



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