Membrane-based packed-sheet liquid desiccant dehumidification system

Humidity control plays a vital role in both buildings and greenhouses. The thermally-driven liquid desiccant dehumidification systems are getting an increasing traction because of their high moisture removal capacity and the possibility of their integration with waste-heat or renewable energy sources. In this work, a novel design concept for liquid desiccant dehumidification systems is proposed to overcome the practical challenges of the conventional systems, such as solution carryover, crystallization, and corrosion. The presented system utilizes a compact "packed-sheet" sorption bed that houses spherical membrane-based micro-absorbers with LiBr as a liquid desiccant. A bench-scale system is designed and tested under the typical dehumidification working conditions. The experimental results showed that the proposed design has up to two-fold higher moisture removal rate per volume (MRR = 75 g/s-m(3)) than a conventional LiBr liquid desiccant dehumidification system (MRR = 35 g/s-m(3)). In addition, a one-dimensional coupled heat and mass transfer mathematical model is developed to simulate the transient behavior of the proposed system. An optimization study, using the validated model, suggested that the performance of proposed design can be maximized to realize moisture removal rates of up to 135 g/s-m(3) (270% higher than the conventional liquid desiccant systems) with a coefficient of performance of 0.25.