Desiccant systems have been proposed as energy saving alternatives to vapor compression air conditioning for handling the latent load. Use of liquid desiccants offers several design and performance advantages over solid desiccants, especially when solar energy is used for regeneration. For liquid-gas contact, packed towers with low pressure drop provide good heat and mass transfer characteristics for compact designs. This paper presents the results from a study of the performance of a packed tower absorber and regenerator for an aqueous lithium chloride desiccant dehumidification system. The rates of dehumidification and regeneration, as well as the effectiveness of the dehumidification and regeneration processes were assessed under the effects of variables such as air and desiccant flow rates, air temperature and humidity, and desiccant temperature and concentration. A variation of the Oberg and Goswami mathematical model was used to predict the experimental findings giving satisfactory results. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.