text: The Cromer cycle is a thermodynamic cycle that uses a desiccant to interact with higher relative humidity air leaving a cold surface. When a system is taken through a series of different states and finally returned to its initial state, a thermodynamic cycle is said to have occurred. The desiccant absorbs moisture from the air leaving the cold surface, releasing heat and drying the air, which can be used in a process requiring dry air. The desiccant is then dried by an air stream at a lower relative humidity, where the desiccant gives up its moisture by evaporation, increasing the air's relative humidity and cooling it. This cooler, moister air can then be presented to the same cold surface as above to take it below its dew point and dry it further, or it can be expunged from the system.
  The desiccant undergoes a reversible process whereby in the first part of the cycle, it absorbs or adsorbs moisture from air leaving a cold surface, releasing heat, and then in the second part of the cycle evaporates moisture, absorbing heat and returning the desiccant to its original state to complete the cycle again. The result of the Cromer cycle is that the process air leaving the cycle is dehumidified further (higher latent ratio) than it would be leaving the cold surface without the cycle. The Cromer cycle concept was originally patented in the mid-1980s. Those patents have expired and thus the cycle is free for anyone to use. The cycle was first publicized in 1997 by Popular Mechanics' in its Tech Update section.