Solar assisted Dual-effect Adsorption cycle for the production of cooling effect and potable water

This paper presents a solar assisted adsorption cycle that produces two useful effects simultaneously, namely, cooling and desalination. Low temperature hot water produced from solar collectors is stored in thermally-stratified tanks and is used to regenerate the Adsorption (AD) Cycle where the silica gel-water pair is used. In this paper, the modeling and experimental results are discussed in terms of key parameters such as the specific daily water production (SDWP), the specific cooling capacity (SCC) and the over conversion ratio (OCR). The experiments show that the system is producing both the chilled water (in evaporator) and potable water (at condenser). With two useful effects from only low temperature waste or renewable heat input, the AD plant is one the plant with the lowest electricity consumption per m3 high grade water in the world.