Fresh air ventilation is essential for maintaining indoor air quality. But when building air is exhausted, to make way for fresh air intake, a tremendous amount of energy is lost from buildings. We are developing membrane-based systems to recover energy from exhaust and improve the energy efficiency of building ventilation.
We demonstrate full-scale energy recovery ventilation technology on university campus buildings to advise energy rebate programs in Michigan.
G. Lekshminarayanan, M. Croal, and J. Maisonneuve, “Recovering latent and sensible energy from building exhaust with membrane-based energy recovery ventilation,” Science and Technology for the Built Environment 26 (2020).
We use modelling and experimental analysis to propose new metrics for maximizing net energy savings and for properly sizing recovery systems.
S. Pushparajah, P. Ryan, K. Kobus, and J. Maisonneuve, “Using normalized net energy savings to effectively size membrane-based energy recovery ventilation systems,” ASHRAE Transactions 127 (2021).
Our work on energy recovery ventilation, has also spun-off the novel concept of using gradients of CO2 and water vapor exhaust to generate power.
S. Moussaddy and J. Maisonneuve, "Energy from carbon dioxide: Experimental and theoretical analysis of power generation from membrane-based sweep gas permeation," Journal of Membrane Science 644 (2022).
maisonneuve@oakland.edu