Membrane Dehumidification and Cooling

Membrane Dehumidification and Cooling: Fundamentals and Applications presents the state-of-the-art on membrane dehumidifiers, highlighting their most recent advancements and providing key insights into global R&D interests. With a strong focus on applications, the book offers characterization techniques to evaluate the potential of hygroscopic materials, as well as experimental methods to study the dehumidifiers’ performance. The book begins by highlighting the demerits of conventional cooling systems and then reviews electrically driven alternative cooling solutions. A comparative study between different dehumidification techniques is also given, along with sections on fundamental transport mechanisms and thermodynamic modeling.

Finally, scaling, heat transfer and thermodynamic analysis are presented, along with a review of hybrid membrane-based air-conditioners. This book is a one-stop resource for recent advancements in membrane dehumidification and cooling applications. It is an essential read for students, researchers and engineers interested in thermal engineering, heat and mass transfer, alternative cooling, energy materials and dehumidification.

Author Biography

Dr. Vivekh Prabakaran currently works as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). He completed his undergraduate coursework from BITS Pilani, India (2015) and worked as a research assistant at the Heat Transfer Laboratory of the Indian Institute of Science. Being the recipient of the prestigious President’s Graduate Fellowship, he received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from NUS in 2020 under Prof. Kian Jon Chua’s supervision. During his doctoral training, he synthesized next-generation advanced desiccant materials and conducted key fundamental experimental and theoretical investigations on heat and mass transport. His Ph.D. findings have been published in over 7 peer-reviewed international journals, and he has co-authored a monograph on advances in desiccant dehumidification. Vivekh’s specific research focus areas include dehumidification, cooling, heat pumping, desalination, solar energy, multi-criteria decision analysis, and advanced materials for energy research. Dr. Chua Kian Jon is currently an Associate Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore. He has been conducting research on air-conditioning, dehumidification, and heat pump systems since 1997. He has conducted both modelling and experimental works for specific building HVAC applications. These include dehumidification/dehydration, cooling, heat pumping, compact heat exchangers and refined temperature/humidity control. He is highly skilled in designing; fabricating; commissioning and testing many experimental test-rigs for heating, cooling, and humidity control for both small- and large-scale applications. He has more than 200 international peer-reviewed journal publications, 6 book chapters and one monograph on advances in air conditioning. His works have garnered more than 10,000 citations. Further, he owns more than 10 patents related to several innovative cooling and dehumidification systems. He is the Principal Investigator of several multi-million competitive research grants.