• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.53 no.11
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• pp.151-159
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• 2016

This paper proposes a ceramic heating element-based tankless instant electric water heater for hand/face washing that does not require a lot of hot water. The heating module, which heats the input water and outputs hot water, operates the ceramic heating element detecting input water using a flow sensor. Inside of the heating module is designed to form one flow path in order to get almost $15^{\circ}C$ increased heated water compared to the input water temperature within 2 second after 1.5 liter per minute water supply. The design validity is verified using a heat flow analysis of the water flow and temperature variations inside of the heating module also. Based on the design data, the heating module is constructed including a single rod-type ceramic heating element. After that, a prototype system having temperature setting function by three steps were constructed. The prototype system is connected to a 1.5 liter per minute water supply line, and the water output temperature and time measurement experiments confirmed that the proposed system output the heated water increased by $18.3^{\circ}C$ in case of third step setting within 2 second after water supply. And standby power is under 1 W and peak power does not exceed the permissible range for the general house usage. Several performance results verify that the proposed tankless instant electric water heater is applicable for the washstand of the house, highway rest area and factory so on as winter-time hand/face washing.