Thermal desalination and air conditioning using absorption cycle

Abstract

Water shortage and hot climate are the most stressing problems in many places all over the world, especially in the Arabian Gulf region. Efficient and sustainable solutions for these problems are a real challenge facing the Gulf Co-operating Countries countries. Vapor absorption cycles have been used for refrigeration and air conditioning application many years ago. The absorption cycle systems are a heat-driven system that can be used as a refrigerator, a heat pump, or a heat transformer. In this work, a new configuration of an absorption cycle has been used to provide chilled water for air conditioning applications and to supply saturated steam to a thermal desalination unit using solar radiation as the driving energy for the cycle. Water–Lithium Bromide absorption cycle is adapted. A low temperature, multi-effect distillation system is combined with the absorption cycle. The combined absorption-desalination systems are modeled and simulated using IPSEpro software.