METHODS OF DEHUMIDIFICATION

Desiccant Dehumidifiers
FIGURE 3.6

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250 F
200 F

Desiccant surface vapor pressure

150 F

3
95 F

2
n

tio

p
or

50 F

1
Desiccant moisture content

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250 F
200 F

Desiccant surface vapor pressure

150 F

Des

orp

tion
95 F

Actually, most solid materials can attract moisture. For instance, plastics like nylon can absorb up to 6% of their dry weight in water vapor.
Gypsum building board can also store a great deal of water vapor, and
the oxide layer on metals attracts and holds a small amount of water
vapor under the right conditions. The difference between these materials and commercial desiccants is capacity. Desiccants designed for
water vapor collection attract and hold from 10 to over 10,000 percent
of their dry weight in water vapor, where other materials have much
lower moisture capacity.
The essential characteristic of desiccants is their low surface vapor
pressure. If the desiccant is cool and dry, its surface vapor pressure is
low, and it can attract moisture from the air, which has a high vapor
pressure when it is moist. After the desiccant becomes wet and hot, its
surface vapor pressure is high, and it will give off water vapor to the
surrounding air. Vapor moves from the air to the desiccant and back
again depending on vapor pressure differences.

50 F

1
Desiccant moisture content

ure
rat
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m
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tt
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icc
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D

250 F
200 F

150 F

3
Cooling

Desiccant surface vapor pressure

Desiccant dehumidifiers are quite different from cooling-based dehumidifiers. Instead of cooling the air to condense its moisture, desiccants
attract moisture from the air by creating an area of low vapor pressure
at the surface of the desiccant. The pressure exerted by the water in the
air is higher, so the water molecules move from the air to the desiccant
and the air is dehumidified.

95 F

50 F

1
Desiccant moisture content

Desiccant dehumidifiers make use of changing vapor pressures to dry

air continuously in a repeating cycle described by the simplified equilibrium diagram at left. The desiccant begins the cycle at point one. Its
surface vapor pressure is low because it is dry and cool. As the desiccant picks up moisture from the surrounding air, the desiccant surface
changes to the condition described by point two. Its vapor pressure is
now equal to that of the surrounding air because the desiccant is moist
and warm. At point two, the desiccant cannot collect more moisture
because there is no pressure difference between the surface and the
vapor in the air.
Then the desiccant is taken out of the moist air, heated, and placed into
a different airstream. The desiccant surface vapor pressure is now very
high higher than the surrounding air so moisture moves off the
surface to the air to equalize the pressure differential. At point three,
the desiccant is dry, but since it is hot, its vapor pressure is still too
high to collect moisture from the air. To restore its low vapor pressure,
the desiccant is cooled returning it to point one in the diagram and
completing the cycle so it can collect moisture once again.
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CHAPTER THREE

Thermal energy drives the cycle. The desiccant is heated to drive moisture off its surface (point two to point three). Then the desiccant is
cooled to restore low vapor pressure (point three to point one). The
efficiency of the process improves when the desiccant has a high moisture capacity and a low mass. The ideal desiccant dehumidifier would
have an infinitely high surface area for collecting moisture, and an
infinitely low mass, since the required heating and cooling energy is
directly proportional to the mass of the desiccant and the mass of the
machinery which presents the desiccant to the airstream. The heavier
the desiccant assembly compared to its capacity, the more energy it
will take to change its temperature which accomplishes dehumidification.
Desiccants can be either solids or liquids both can collect moisture.
For example, the small packets inside camera cases and consumer electronics boxes often contain silica gel, a solid desiccant. Also, triethylene glycol a liquid similar to auto antifreeze is a powerful
desiccant which can absorb moisture. Liquid and solid desiccants both
behave the same way their surface vapor pressure is a function of
their temperature and moisture content.

200
Moisture ( gr/lb )

One subtle distinction between desiccants is their reaction to moisture.

Some simply collect it like a sponge collects water the water is held
on the surface of the material and in the narrow passages through the
sponge. These desiccants are called adsorbents, and are mostly solid
materials. Silica gel is an example of a solid adsorbent. Other desiccants undergo a chemical or physical change as they collect moisture.
These are called absorbents, and are usually liquids, or solids which
become liquid as they absorb moisture. Lithium chloride is a hygroscopic salt which collects water vapor by absorption, sodium chloride
common table salt is another.

Process air
Dehumidification

Whether the desiccant functions by absorption or adsorption is not

usually important to a system designer, but the distinction exists and
engineers should be aware of the difference between the two terms.

30

Temperature ( F )

140
Latent to
sensible
heat
conversion

FIGURE 3.7

So far we have discussed how the desiccant functions. Now we will

examine what happens to the air being dehumidified. When moisture
is removed from air, the reaction liberates heat. This is simply the reverse of evaporation, when heat is consumed by the reaction. In a
cooling-based dehumidification system, the heating effect of dehumidification is less apparent because the heat is removed immediately by
the cooling coil. In a desiccant dehumidification system, the heat is

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Dehumidified air path

As moisture is removed from the air, its
enthalpy stays constant, so its sensible
temperature rises. In fact, the enthalpy of
the process air air being dehumidified
actually increases slightly. This is because in
many dehumidifiers, a small amount of
residual heat from desiccant reactivation can
be carried into the dry air stream.

METHODS OF DEHUMIDIFICATION

transferred to the air and to the desiccant, so the process air generally
leaves the dehumidifier warmer than when it entered the desiccant
unit.
The temperature rise is directly proportional to the amount of moisture
removed from the air the drier the air leaves the dehumidifier, the
warmer it will be.
Looking at the process on a psychrometric chart, it is apparent how
desiccant dehumidification differs from cooling-based dehumidification. Using our previous example of air entering the dehumidifier at
70 F and 50% relative humidity, the dry bulb temperature rises as the
moisture falls, so that the total energy (enthalpy) of the air stays the
same. In fact, the total energy actually increases slightly because of
waste heat transferred to the air from the regeneration process. In
many applications notably product drying and unheated storage
this temperature rise of the dry air is desirable. In other cases additional sensible heat is not an advantage, so the dry air is cooled before
being delivered to the point of use.
There are five typical equipment configurations for desiccant
dehumidifiers:

Liquid spray-tower
Solid packed tower
Rotating horizontal bed
Multiple vertical bed
Rotating Honeycombe

Each configuration has advantages and disadvantages, but all types of

desiccant dehumidifiers have been widely applied.

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