A review on progressive development in desiccant materials

Abstract

Desiccant based comfort cooling has been very popular among the alternative cooling techniques that uses renewable solar heat or waste heat now become a good option to conventional cooling technology. The effective regeneration of desiccant materials used in the desiccant based dehumidification and cooling nearly about ambient conditions plays a crucial role in ameliorating the overall system cooling performance. The innovation in the desiccant materials that are nearly regenerated at ambient conditions by use of low temperature primary heat is the main aim of researchers to improve the dehumidification rate of the existing conventional desiccants. The non-conventional desiccant materials include composite desiccants, nano-porous inorganic materials and polymeric desiccants include in this review. Regeneration capability of the desiccant materials is its moisture rejection ability at low temperature primary heat source. It is found in earlier research that the appropriate selection regarding the type host matrix and immersed salts, composite desiccants can significantly improve dehumidification ability of the desiccants and its better regeneration at nearly ambient conditions. Furthermore, a good tolerance among the regeneration and adsorption capacity by tailoring textural properties of nano-porous inorganic materials is the demand of future desiccants. For polymeric desiccants, further progress in increasing its adsorptive dehumidification rate is also a demand of future dehumidification and cooling techniques designs. Currently limited materials available today can successfully satisfy the above demands. So, it right time to investigate more intensive researches in the field of development and evaluation of advanced materials to ameliorate the cost and energy savings in the field of dehumidification and cooling of the built environment.