A Preliminary Experimental Study on the Performance of a Membrane-based Air Dehumidifier Using Ionic Liquid

Liquid desiccant air dehumidification (LDAD) is a promising alternative to the dehumidification systems that use mechanical cooling. However, its use in the market is still very limited due to its high installation cost, intensive carryover, and maintenance issues associated with the corrosion resulting from conventional liquid desiccants. The research reported in this paper aimed at addressing these challenges by applying membrane technology and ionic liquids in LDAD. This paper introduces a design of a membrane-based ionic liquid desiccant air dehumidification (MILDAD). A small-scale prototype of the MILDAD was built and tested in controlled conditions to characterize its performance. The preliminary experimental results indicate that the MILDAD can effectively dehumidify the air and the ionic liquid desiccant can be regenerated at 40ºC temperature. However, the latent effectiveness is relatively small compared with conventional LDAD systems and the current design is prone to leakage, especially when the flow rate of air and/or ionic liquid is high