Performances of Heat Pump Driven Two-Stage Desiccant Plates Dehumidifier for Residential Application in Humid Climate

Buildings in southern China have high dehumidification demands in summer, especially during plum rain season. To investigate the dehumidifier properly working under high humid and high temperature climate, this paper introduced a residential solid desiccant dehumidifier, which has three features, namely desiccant plate dehumidification, heat pump driven and two-stage configuration. This dehumidifier is designed to process the indoor air to the required humidity ratio to meet the humid dissipation demand and the outdoor air is used to regenerate the dehumidifier. The residential application of this dehumidifier in humid climate was discussed in this paper through simulation. First, a heat pump driven two-stage desiccant plate dehumidifier was designed and modeling methods were introduced. Second, parametric studies were carried out, and the influences of plate thickness, switching time, air flow rate and supply air humidity ratio on performances, such as energy consumption and system performance coefficient of this dehumidifier, were discussed. Lastly, the energy consumption and the system performance coefficient of this dehumidifier were compared with those of traditional mechanical dehumidifier using vapor compression cycle. The results show that the switching time is recommended as 3 to 5 minutes. The discussed dehumidifier can meet the residential dehumidification demand in humid climate, and the performances are greatly enhanced as compared with the traditional condensing dehumidifier due to high evaporating temperature and no need of reheat.