Investigation of the temporal behavior of desiccant disk for use in dehumidifiers and air conditioners

The majority of household energy is consumed in heating and air conditioning. Desiccant disks are a way to harvest renewable solar energy or waste heat for air conditioning. In the literature there is a gap in the investigation of start-up of desiccant dehumidifiers, which this paper attempts to covers. For this work, a desiccant disk was designed, manufactured, and tested. To reduce the cost, off-the-shelf components were used as structure materials. And as adsorption material, widely available materials were used. Input heat was simulated by an electrical heater and power to auxiliary motors was provided in the form of DC power. Temperature and humidity were recorded at various locations using DHT11 sensors. The system was turned off and tested at a start of operation mode. The performance of the desiccant disk was quantified by the coefficient of performance and the dehumidification efficiency. Results showed gradual increase of the desiccant disk efficiency with a maximum COP value of 0.4 reached within 10 min of the start of operation. Time delays were attributed to heating of the disk. Further work is required to fully understand the transient operation.