Dehumidifying a Room: Solve the Physics Problem

[gday56]

There was a physics problem I saw the other day which asked how to dehumidify a medium/large room in one minute. I have absolutely no idea how to figure this out, so I was wondering if any of you know how.
- chris

P.S. If it's impossible to dehumidify in one minute, then I must have read incorrectly, and it's probably 10 minutes.

 

[tony873004]

If you could lower the room's temperature to below freezing, that might work. The colder you make it, the quicker it'll happen. You could also use a large air pump and suck out all the air. No air = no humidity.

By dehumidify, do they mean make sure there's absolutely no water vapor in the air?

I imagine this is a hypothetical question with a clever but impractical answer, as the values you would need to actually compute this are missing. (ie. room size, temperature, initial humidity level, etc.)

 

[ShawnD]

You can also try blowing large amounts of pulverized sodium hydroxide or calcium oxide into the room. Both are excellent desiccants.

 

[gday56]

Yes it is a hypothetical question and there has to be absolutely no humidity in the air. Both of your answers seem clever, but how is it possible to freeze a room in one minute?
- chris

 

[tony873004]

Yes it is a hypothetical question and there has to be absolutely no humidity in the air. Both of your answers seem clever, but how is it possible to freeze a room in one minute?
- chris

With my hypothetical instant room freezer laser gun!

You could also get a large dump truck and fill the room with dry sand. No air, no humidity.

Or fill the room with water. Or would that be considered 100% humidity?

Or fill the room with a liquid other than water.

Do let us know what the answer is

 

[ShawnD]

how to dehumidify a medium/large room in one minute

Maybe it's a play on words. If you blow up the entire building, technically it's no longer a room so you can't say the "room" has any humidity in it.