Quote:
Originally Posted by Ross D
Could a dessicant wheel be made to turn under gravity? The wetter side would be heavier and therefore, if the unit was angled correctly turn the wheel under its own weight, with the lighter drier side gradually moving up as it dried.
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This would be very easy to test. You wouldn't even need a whole wheel, just a simple balance, and silica gel. Try it out and let us know what you have learned.
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But back to the de-humidify question, I haven't been following this thread, but...
Whenever you heat air, the amount of moisture it contains remains the same, but at the same time, the relative humidity (AKA: "RH") gets smaller. This is because warm air can hold more moisture than cold air.
So, no matter what the relative humidity of the outside air is, when you heat it, the new RH will be lower, and thus capable of holding more moisture.
On sunny days, if you continuously brought in cold air from the outside, heated it, circulated it around your space, and then dumped it outside, you would de-humidify your space. If you got some cheapo PV panel (I think there actually is such a thing now) and used it to power your beer can heater fan, your system would only run on sunny days.
Personally, I doubt that the gel approach will be very useful useful... but I'm open to being show to be wrong.
-AC