The present application encompasses methods and apparatus for heating a load such as clothes immersed in a medium such as water during a heating period. A method embodiment of the present invention comprises heating the load and medium within an enclosure by subjecting said load and medium to heated air originated from a conventional energy source; and applying heat to said load and medium within the enclosure via an AC electrical field, embodied as a capacitor, originated from an RF power source.

A dryer according to the disclosure may detect current flowing through a motor for rotating a drum, detect humidity of a drying material accommodated in the drum, compare the detected humidity to a plurality of pieces of reference humidity and compare the detected current to a plurality of pieces of reference current to obtain a drying load, control a revolutions per minute (rpm) of the motor, a frequency of a compressor provided in a heat pump, and a degree of superheat of an evaporator provided in the heat pump based on the drying load, perform a drying process, detect humidity of the drying material while the drying process is performed, and finish the drying process in response to the detected humidity determined to be target humidity.

A method controls a laundry treatment apparatus that includes a drum in which a target object to be dried is put, a drum motor to drive the drum, an air duct to guide air into the drum, a heat pump provided in the air duct to dehumidify and heat the air, a blower fan to move the air of the air duct, and a blower motor to drive the blower fan. The method includes a drum driving step for repeatedly driving the drum by accelerating and decelerating the drum, a steam supply step for supplying or stopping steam for a predetermined time during execution of the drum driving step, and an air supply step for circulating internal air of the drum during execution of the drum driving step. The circulation of the internal air of the drum is stopped during execution of the steam supply step.

The present specification relates to a clothing treatment apparatus and a control method therefor, the clothing treatment apparatus comprising: a plurality of inverters for controlling the motors of a drum, a compressor, and a blowing fan; a converter for converting input power input from an external source and outputting the converted power to the inverters; and a control unit for controlling the plurality of inverters and the converter.

A disclosed dryer includes a receptacle configured to contain material to be dried, an air duct configured to route recirculating air and/or fresh air to the receptacle, a heating device configured to heat the recirculating air, and at least one sensor. The sensor is configured to determine a relative humidity and/or temperature, and the air duct includes at least one adjusting element configured to modify a portion of recirculating air routed to the receptacle. The dryer further includes a control or regulating device configured to control or regulate the portion of recirculating air routed to the receptacle and/or a heating capacity of the heating device during a drying process. A disclosed method includes controlling a portion of recirculating air routed to the receptacle and/or a heating capacity of the heating device. Further, a mixture of recirculating air and fresh air are varied during heat-up, drying, and cool-down phases.

An apparatus for controlling a clothes treating apparatus, the clothes treating apparatus, and a method for controlling the clothes treating apparatus configured to sterilize an evaporator by stopping an operation of a compressor under a specific condition to allow a surface temperature of the evaporator to be at or above a reference temperature due to thermal equilibrium caused by the stopping of the operation of the compressor.

A drying air duct, a clothing treatment device and a method for cleaning a drying air duct are provided. The drying air duct includes a condensing section air duct, a heating section air duct and a fan; the fan is provided at a connection position of the condensing section air duct and the heating section air duct, a cleaning device is provided in the condensing section air duct, the cleaning device is provided at an end of the condensing section air duct adjacent to the fan and is capable of cleaning a side of the condensing section air duct away from the fan. The drying air duct can effectively clean the pipe sudden expansion area of the condensing section air duct, preventing the accumulation of soft flocks in the condensing section air duct.

A dryer includes a main body having an opening for an object to be dried to be entered therethrough, a drum arranged inside the main body for accommodating the object entered through the opening, a door opening or closing the opening, an input device configured to receive an input to perform a dehumidification mode, and output a control signal corresponding to the received input, a heat exchanger heating air supplied to the drum, a fan forming a flow of air along a fluid path connected to the drum through the heat exchanger from outside of the main body, and a controller configured to control the fan to introduce air from the outside of the main body to flow along the fluid path in response to the control signal received from the input device.

Disclosed herein is a method of controlling a laundry treating apparatus, if a user selects a uniform course, including performing a preheating operation of a heater to generate steam, performing a first cooling operation to operate a blower unit and a moving hanger after the preheating operation has been terminated, performing a steam operation to operate the blower unit and a steam unit and to circulate steam to a treating chamber after the first cooling operation has been terminated, performing a standby operation to operate the blower unit after the steam operation has been terminated, performing a second cooling operation to operate the blower unit after the standby operation has been terminated, and performing a drying operation to operate the blower unit and a heat pump unit and to provide heat to the treating chamber to dry the treating chamber after the second cooling operation has been terminated.

Disclosed is a method for controlling a laundry treating apparatus including an efficiency increasing operation and an efficiency maintaining operation, wherein the efficiency increasing operation includes a first efficiency increasing operation, wherein the controller controls the first driver such that an RPM of the drum corresponds to a first drum RPM and controls the second driver such that an RPM of the fan corresponds to a first fan RPM to perform a first efficiency increasing process, and a second efficiency increasing operation, wherein, after the first efficiency increasing operation, the controller controls the first driver such that the RPM of the drum corresponds to the first drum RPM and controls the second driver such that the RPM of the fan corresponds to a second fan RPM higher than the first fan RPM to perform a second efficiency increasing process.