Investigation on recirculated regenerative solid desiccant-assisted dehumidification system: Impact of system configurations and desiccant materials

Desiccant wheels (DWs) have emerged as highly promising alternatives for achieving efficient dehumidification, low-carbon and energy-saving initiatives. The present work aimed to determine the optimal system configuration for dehumidifying enclosed spaces using a DW-based system with the recirculated regeneration of process air based on modelling investigation, which has been validated with experiments. Three distinct configurations of this DW-based system were compared. The impact of operational parameters and desiccant materials on the system dehumidification capacity (D_tot) and energy efficiency was thoroughly analyzed. The results indicate that the posterior diversion of regeneration air was most preferable for improved dehumidification performance, enhancing the D_tot and the improvement of moisture removal capacity (ΔMRC) by 3.7 % and 42.8 %, respectively. Moreover, posterior diversion emerged as a compelling option for energy conservation as it reduced the energy consumption by 13.3 %. Furthermore, six different desiccant materials were compared, and it was found that the synthesized metal silicate material was most suitable for the proposed systems, improving the optimal ΔMRC by 32.2 %. Furthermore, a strong correlation was identified between the maximum adsorption capacity and the proposed system performance. Overall, these findings aid in developing a promising method for enclosed space dehumidification and cooling.