UNIT OPERASI 3

DEHUMIDIFIKASI

I Nyoman Widiasa
Dept. Teknik Kimia, Fak. Teknik, Universitas Diponegoro
Email: widiasa@undip.ac.id
1 Silabi dan Sistem Penilaian
Bagian # 1
Tatap muka
 Dehumidifikasi  75 menit paparan
 Pengeringan  75 menit diskusi
 Adsorpsi

Penilaian
 Maks 10 tugas
 Maks 40 UTS
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2 DEHUMIDIFIKASI
 Dehumidification is the process of removing water vapour from
damp air.
 A high water vapour content in air can introduce a number of
problems.
• Create physiological stress and discomfort
• Encourage ill health
• Germinate mould spores and grow mould
• Accelerate the corrosion of metals
• Reduce the electrical resistance of insulators
• Create plant breakdowns in icy conditions
• Spoil surface finishes
• Induce premature chemical breakdown
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Create physiological stress and discomfort

 Under hot conditions a person controls his body temperature by

the evaporative cooling effect of sweating.
 This cooling effect becomes progressively more difficult to
achieve with increasing relative humidity.
 The physiological system then becomes stressed as the heart
rate increases to recirculate blood faster.
 Humidity is the critical factor for heat stress, and in very hot
conditions it should be as low as practicable.
 Relative humidities below 70% are necessary for fabrics to feel
comfortable

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Create physiological stress and discomfort

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Create physiological stress and discomfort

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Encourage ill health

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Germinate mould spores and grow mould

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Accelerate the corrosion of metals

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Reduce the electrical resistance of insulators

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Create plant breakdowns in icy conditions

 Pneumatic controls and power supplies are widely used in

industry, particularly in hazardous areas of potential fire or
explosion hazard.
 The unexpected presence of water or ice can block pipes and
valves, sieze linkages and falsify instrument readings whenever
very cold weather occurs.
 The safety implications of this make it imperative to protect
against such occurrences, and the simplest solution is to dry the
pneumatic air supply

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Spoil surface finishes

 Moisture droplets either blown or condensing onto surfaces

during manufacture can spoil the appearance and lead to more
irritating corrosion blemishes later.
 Dry-air supplies or dry-air curtains are essential in humid
climates

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Induce premature chemical breakdown

 Many chemicals react with water vapour, particularly at high

temperatures. This can lead to unexpected corrosion compounds
and early failure in chemical process plant. Moisture can also
inhibit catalysts and shorten plant operation time.
 Refrigerant cycles are a particularly good example of where the
presence of water vapour in the refrigerant gas can be
destructive. Reactions between the fluorinated refrigerant and the
water vapour can lead to the creation of acids which can take
copper into solution from the pipes and deposit it on cast-iron
surfaces such as pistons, thus causing seizure.

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Relative Humidity

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Historical development of air drying
 In the fifteenth century the scientists at the Academio del Cimento in
Florence quantified the amount of moisture in the air by collecting the
condensate which formed on the outside of a specially-designed ice-filled
jar.
 However, it was not until the eighteenth century that the science of
moisture or 'psychrome tries' was placed on a firm base.
 The engineering work started in the United States of America with
Delahaye in 1874 using a cool stream of water through which the air was
cooled and dehumidified.
 it was not until 1902 that Willis Carrier used commercial ice-making
eguipment to create an air conditioning system with dehumidification.
 Mass production techniques were introduced in the USA in 1947, and by
1952 28 companies were together producing over 75000 units/year.
 Today both Japan and the USA each make over a million units annually.
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Psychrometric charts
Psychrometric charts describe
the state of damp air. The
terms used are:
1. Humidity mixing ratio. This is the
ratio of the mass of moisture present to
that of dry air. It is a measure of the
quantity of water present.
2. Relative humidity. This is the ratio of
the actual water vapour pressure to
that at saturation.
3. Dewpoint. It is the temperature at
which moisture just starts to condense
out of the air stream.

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Psychrometric charts
Psychrometric charts describe
the state of damp air. The
terms used are:
4. Wet-bulb temperature. There are
two wet-bulb temperatures, 'sling‘ and
'screen'.
Sling is the temperature of a wet
thermometer placed in an air stream
with the air passing over it at a given
air speed, and it is preferred because it
is taken under controlled and
reproducible conditions.
Screen wet-bulb temperature is similar
but measured in undefined 'still' air
conditions.
Knowledge of both wet- and dry-bulb
temperatures enables the humidity
mixing ratio to be calculated.
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Psychrometric charts
Psychrometric charts describe
the state of damp air. The
terms used are:
5. Enthalpy. This is a convenient
mathematical expression of the total
heat of the substance and is the sum of
the internal and potential energy.
For moist air the enthalpy is the sum of
the enthalpies of the dry air and the
water vapour

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Psychrometric charts

The enthalpy of moist air is

the sum of the enthalpies of
the dry air and the water
vapour

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Reducing the relative humidity
a. Dilution with dry air. The classical way
of lowering the relative humidity is to mix
dry air with the moist.
If the dry air is colder than the moist air
then the air temperature of the mixture
will fall.
The energy cost for such methods is very
high.

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Reducing the relative humidity
b. Moisture removal. Sorbent systems
remove water vapour and this effectively
lowers the relative humidity.
In practice there will be a small increase in
dry-bulb temperatures as the desiccant
heats up.
The energy penalty of such a system is
high because the sorbent has to be
regenerated at high temperature.

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Reducing the relative humidity
c. Heat pump dehumidification. The heat
pump dehumidifier tends to work along
lines of constant enthalpy.
The latent heat of the condensate is
returned to warm up the dry air.
Cool moist air is converted to warm dry air
of similar enthalpy.
Since the high enthalpy of moist air is
principally due to the latent heat of the
water vapour, the potential recoverable
energy is high.
In practice, the dehumidifier will add
sensible heat to the air passing through it
and so the slope of this line on the
psychrometric chart will be a little more
towards that of 'heating'.
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Reducing the relative humidity
There are four general ways of
lowering the relative humidity of
moist air, and these can be illustrated
on the psychrometric chart:

d. Increasing the temperature. Raising

the dry-bulb temperature increases the
saturation vapour pressure and hence
lowers the relative humidity.
It does not change the actual amount of
water present.

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 To be
continued

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