Abstract In this study, the performance of a new polymer desiccant wheel (DW), which can be used for dehumidification in a solid desiccant cooling system, was investigated. In order to investigate the compact design of the DW for compact cooling system, DWs were evaluated at four levels of thickness while varying the inlet air temperature, humidity ratio, regeneration temperature, and rotational speed. It was found that lower inlet air temperature and higher humidity ratio are in favor of better DW performance. Higher regeneration temperature (60 °C) would bring a reduced marginal benefit in terms of latent coefficient of performance (COP latent ). Test results also indicate that the optimum rotational speed decreases while DW thickness increases. Three thin DWs (30, 50 and 70 mm) were compared with the typical thick DW (150 mm) and it was found that 50 and 70 mm DWs have the potentials in the compact cooling system with the maximum moisture removal capacity (MRC max ) based on specific volume (MRC max /DW Volume) 1.2 and 0.7 times higher than that of 150 mm DW, respectively. In addition, the maximum COP latent of 50 and 70 mm DW can be up to 0.45 and 0.5, respectively.