This idea has some in common with my orignal vacuum clothesdryer idea... but also with some few notable differences.
The clothes are in an air tight chamber, and there's a heat pump to provide the needed warmth... but from here it differs.
Firstly, there're three phases of drying... in order, these
are the "cool boil," "blow dry," and "cool down" phases.
During the "cool boil" phase, the air in the dryer is sucked through a heat exchanger, where it is cooled by the cool side of the heat pump, and then it is pumped/compressed out the exhaust. At the same time, air and steam from inside the tumbler full of clothes are blown by a fan through another heat exchanger, where it is heated by the hot side of the heat pump, and then goes back to the clothes. Part of the cool side of the heat exchanger is exposed to the outside air, and warmed by a fan. No air is added into the clothes dryer during this phase.
When the pressure of the air in the dryer is low enough, and the temperature high enough, we can be certain that all of the water has turned to vapor, and can move to the next phase, "blow dry."
During the "blow dry" phase, the machine functions identically to my original vacuum clothesdryer: fresh air enters, is warmed by the heat pump, passes through an air powered motor, then through the clothes tumbler, is cooled by the heat pump, and is pumped/compressed out of the machine.
The pupose of this phase is to remove all of the (cold) steam from the clothes... we only need to move enough heat from the air/steam leaving to the air entering to maintain a vacuum, and keep the system warm enough to prevent condensation (or worse, freezing).
A hygrometer determines when to switch from this phase to the next one.
The third phase, "cool down," is much like the "blow dry" phase, but with the heat pump turned off.
Since the air coming in *isn't* heated, and the air going out *isn't* cooled, each rotation of the air powered motor brings a greater mass of air into the machine than is removed from the machine by each rotation of the vacuum pump.
Consequently, the warm air inside the machine is replaced with cool air, and at the same time, the pressure gradually increases to atmospheric pressure.
When the pressure is close enough to atmospheric, the machine turns off.