A Moisture Penetrating Humidity Pump Directly Powered by One Sun Illumination

Abstract

The humidity control has a broad and substantial demand all over the industrial, commercial and residential situations. The current humidity pumping technologies require high-intensive maintenance due to the complexity of the mechanical structures. Furthermore, the indirect utilization of solar energy increasing both cost and energy loss. Here, we demonstrate a new humidity pumping concept based on multi-layer moisture permeable panels. Such panels, with a simple structure, may allow the penetration of moisture from indoor(adsorption) to outdoor(desorption) with little heat loss. One sun illumination is introduced as the energy source. A proof-of-concept prototype is designed and established, and successfully dehumidifies the indoor air with a best dehumidification rate of 33.8 g·m^-2·h-1. By applying such humidity pump, the indoor latent heat load can be handled independently and consumes no electricity. To our scope, this is the first design to realize humidity pumping under one sun illumination without any auxiliary unit.

Keywords: humidity control, humidity pump, moisture penetration, solar energy, photo thermal effect, adsorption and desorption