Desiccant dehumidifiers
Functional principle and technical differences
Industrial devices with moist air discharge
Professional desiccant dehumidifiers are mostly used in the commercial and industrial sector, where large amounts of sometimes extremely dry air are required also at low temperatures. Both economically and technically, this can only be achieved using desiccant dehumidifiers.
Compared with solutions for private users, commercial desiccant dehumidifiers come with less comfort equipment and are instead designed to offer robustness, durability, a long lifetime and a high dry air flow rate.
Not least owing to this high air flow rate, the moisture is not condensed inside these devices, but is blown out directly in the form of hot water vapour or discharged via a hose or channel connection – as you may know from your clothes dryer at home.
Therefore, when choosing your device, make sure not to select an industrial unit for private use since the latter are not equipped with integrated water collection containers.
Comfort devices with condenser
These devices designed for private use work on the same principle as desiccant dehumidifiers for commercial applications.
The sucked-in room air is guided through the dehumidification sector of a rotating desiccant wheel coated with a hygroscopic sorption agent on which the moisture from the air deposits.
Silica gel is a typical sorbent – a desiccant with a very large hygroscopic surface. In professional industrial desiccant dehumidifiers, each gram of this desiccant has a surface of more than 700 square metres. This means that less than 10 grams have a surface as large as an entire football pitch.
The dry air – dehumidified since the moisture was taken up by the desiccant – is then blown out into the room again.
To remove the water from moisture-loaded desiccant wheel, warm air heated by a heating element flows through a separate regeneration sector of the desiccant wheel in a continuous circuit. Owing to its temperature, the air can take up the moisture from the desiccant wheel and then guides it through a condenser element.
The cooler intake air simultaneously circulates around the condenser element, which is why the water inside the element condenses and drips into a water tank. The regeneration air is then refed to the heating element in a constant circuit to take up new moisture.
Practical knowledge concerning dehumidifiers – summary of all chapters
Chapter 1: Basic knowledge regarding humidity – relative is everything
Chapter 2: Overview of dehumidification methods – condensation and desiccation
Chapter 2.1: Condenser dryers with compressor technology
Chapter 2.2: Condenser dryers with Peltier technology
Chapter 2.3: Desiccant dehumidifiers
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