The desiccant coated heat exchanger (DCHE), utilizing inner cooling source to ease the side effect of sorption heat, is now a hot spot in the field of humidity control. Meanwhile, when incorporated in heat pumps, the function of DCHEs is expected to be further extended. Named as solid desiccant heat pump (SDHP), such system can realize weakly-coupled temperature and humidity control both in the cooling and heating modes. Promising refrigerants are near-azeotropic mixtures, and the DCHEs in SDHP then function as desiccant-coated evaporators/condensers (DCEs/DCCs). In this paper, a comprehensive physical and mathematical description of the DCEs/DCCs is first proposed to conduct the thermodynamic analysis of the component. Furthermore, the system simulation of the SDHP validates the feasibility of the vapor compression (VC) cycle with the new type of heat exchangers (HX5), and the calculated coefficient of performance (COP) is 7.19. The precision of the component model, along with the superiority of the SDHP, is then verified by an experimental setup. The experimental study also reveals that, with the outdoor air of 35 degrees C, 21 g/kg (indoor 25%, 10 g/kg, 70%fresh air), the SDHP can provide cold and dry supply air of 20 degrees C, 8.5 g/kg and the corresponding COP reaches to 7.14. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.