International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Performance investigation of a waste heat-driven 3-bed 2-evaporator

adsorption cycle for cooling and desalination
Kyaw Thu a,b,, Bidyut Baran Saha c,d,, Kian Jon Chua b, Kim Choon Ng b,e
a
Kyushu University Program of Leading Graduate School, Green Asia Education Center, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences,
Kyushu University, Kasuga-koen 6-1, Kasuga-shi, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576, Singapore
c
International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER), Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
d
Mechanical Engineering Department, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
e
Water Desalination and Reuse Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 28 December 2015
Received in revised form 6 April 2016
Accepted 28 May 2016

Keywords:
Adsorption
Cooling
Desalination
Waste heat recovery

a b s t r a c t
Environment-friendly adsorption (AD) cycles have gained much attention in cooling industry and its
applicability has been extended to desalination recently. AD cycles are operational by low-temperature
heat sources such as exhaust gas from processes or renewable energy with temperatures ranging from
55 C to 85 C. The cycle is capable of producing two useful effects, namely cooling power and highgrade potable water, simultaneously. This article discusses a low temperature, waste heat-powered
adsorption (AD) cycle that produces cooling power at two temperature-levels for both dehumidification
and sensible cooling while providing high-grade potable water. The cycle exploits faster kinetics for desorption process with one adsorber bed under regeneration mode while full utilization of the uptake
capacity by adsorbent material is achieved employing two-stage adsorption via low-pressure and
high-pressure evaporators. Type A++ silica gel with surface area of 863.6 m2/g and pore volume of
0.446 cm3/g is employed as adsorbent material. A comprehensive numerical model for such AD cycle
is developed and the performance results are presented using assorted hot water and cooling water inlet
temperatures for various cycle time arrangements. The cycle is analyzed in terms of key performance
indicators i.e., the specific cooling power (SCP), the coefficient of performance (COP) for both evaporators
and the overall system, the specific daily water production (SDWP) and the performance ratio (PR).
Further insights into the cycle performance are scrutinized using a Dhring diagram to depict the thermodynamic states of the processes as well as the vapor uptake behavior of adsorbent. In the proposed
cycle, the adsorbent materials undergo near saturation conditions due to the pressurization effect from
the high pressure evaporator while faster kinetics for desorption process is exploited, subsequently providing higher system COP, notably up to 0.82 at longer cycle time while the COPs for low-pressure and
high-pressure evaporators are recorded to be 0.33 and 0.51, respectively.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Global warming and environmental issues has become present
and clear danger to mankind. Recent phenomena in unusual
weather disasters such as super cyclones, severe heavy rainfalls
and floods are excellent evidence of natures adverse response
[1,2]. Thus, it is time to rethink and scrutinize the way the energy
Corresponding authors at: Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering
Sciences, Kyushu University, Kasuga-koen 6-1, Kasuga-shi, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan
(K. Thu). International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER),
Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan (B.B. Saha).
E-mail addresses: kyaw.thu.813@m.kyushu-u.ac.jp (K. Thu), saha.baran.bidyut.
213@m.kyushu-u.ac.jp (B.B. Saha).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2016.05.127
0017-9310/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

is produced to sustain economic growth and modern living standards in terms of sustainability. Improving the efficiency of systems may be a short-term answer while renewable and clean
energy promise long-term sustainability. Hence, development or
improvement of thermodynamic cycle driven by renewable energy
has become crucial for the next generation. Modern economy and
life style is built around energy especially for thermal comfort and
potable water. Potable water is a precious resource for daily activities in agriculture, industry and domestic sectors. Its availability to
mankind is less than 1% of the total available water on earth [3].
The rapid growth of human population and urbanization of
dwellings has created two major challenges namely: (1) high
potable water demand and (2) increasing cooling/heating requirements in residencies, industrial spaces and offices. Much potable

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K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

Nomenclature
A
q
q
qo
COP
cp
Ds0
Ea
g
hf
hfg
k
L
M
P
P0
PR
Q
Qst
r
R
Rp
SDWP
T
t
T0
UOverall

vp

q00
_
m

area, m2
concentration, kg/kg
equilibrium uptake, kg/kg
the limiting uptake, kg/kg
the coefficient of performance,

specific heat capacity, J/kgK
kinetic constant for the silica gel water system, m2/s
activation energy of surface diffusion, kJ/mol
gravitational acceleration, m/s2
sensible heat, kJ/kg
latent heat, kJ/kg
thermal conductivity, W/mK
length, m
mass, kg
pressure, Pa
equilibrium pressure, Pa
performance ratio,
the total heat or energy, W or J
isosteric heat of adsorption, kJ/kg
radius, m
Universal gas constant, J/Kmol
average radius of silica gel, m
specific daily water production, m3/day/ton
temperature, K
time, s
reference temperature, K
overall heat transfer coefficient, W/m2K
the pore volume, cm3/g
heat flux, W/m2
mass flow rate, kg/s

Greek Letters
d
flag which governs mode of operation
r
flag which governs mode of operation

water is used in agriculture for food production while the thermal

comfort by air-conditioning is an essential commodity in a modernized life-style. The production of these useful effects is particularly energy intensive and these processes emit considerable
amount of green-house gases leading to global warming. Thus,
the motivation is to explore alternative yet efficient technologies
that improve the specific energy needed for cooling and water production, in particular tapping renewable energy and waste heat
sources converting them into the aforementioned useful effects [4].
Conventional desalination methods yield potable water from
seawater or brackish water while the specific energy of consumption ranging from as low as 2.515 kWh/m3 depending on the process [5,6]. Examples of such processes are the Multi-stage flash
distillation (MSF) and Multi-effect distillation (MED) which are
thermally-driven, using the steam emanating from the low pressure stages of a power plant [79]. The membrane-based Reverse
Osmosis (RO) is electrically driven and they dominate the worlds
potable water production capacity as much as 63% [10,11]. On
the other hand, the thermally driven desalination plants such as
the MSFs and the MEDs are the key success stories in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) countries [1214]: This is attributed
to two factors: Firstly, the seawater feed in the GCC region has
higher salinity, typically greater than 45 parts per thousand or g/
L, and the Gulf seawater is frequently plagued with algae blooms.
Secondly, the fuel cost in the region is inexpensive through huge
subsidies and thus, the cogeneration of electricity, cooling and
desalted water in-situ makes good economic sense.

l
s
q
m

flag which governs mode of operation

viscosity, kg/ms
number of cycles per day,

density, kg/m3
specific volume, m3/kg

Subscripts
abe
adsorbate
ads
adsorption
bed
sorption bed
Brine
Concentrated brine
ch
chilled water
Cond
condenser
cw
cooling water
d
distillate
des
desorption
Evap
evaporator
g
gaseous phase
HP
high pressure
hw
hot water
HX
heat exchanger
i
inside
in
inlet
l
liquid
LP
low pressure
o
outside
out
outlet
reg
regeneration
s
salt/ adsorbent
sg
silica gel
ss
stainless steel
v
vapor
w
wall

Cooling energy for air-conditioning is produced using

electrically-driven mechanical vapor compression chillers but nevertheless, they consumed electricity produced at power plants
with finite carbon footprint. With the advent of environmentfriendly approach for cooling energy, the development of thermal
compressors such as absorption and adsorption cycles enables the
conversion of waste heat or renewable energy at low activation
temperatures [1518] into cooling energy and this maximizes
the overall energy conversion efficiency. Instances for examples
of such low temperature-driven systems are the adsorption
desalination (AD) and the Membrane Distillation (MD) technologies [1922]. These are emerging low cost desalination and cooling
technologies with cycle activation temperatures suitably designed
to the supply temperatures from exhaust waste heat and renewable energy if unused otherwise, they would have been purged into
the ambient further contributing to global warming. As such, other
than the amortization of equipment, e.g., collectors or heat
exchangers, needed to harness the low temperature heat sources,
the cost of the waste heat is essentially free. Although the concept
of free energy from waste heat may not be accepted readily by
many analysts, the example of natural water cycle where the
energy from the sun to evaporate seawater from oceans is truly a
case of desalination with zero cost excluding the cost of dams
and reservoirs for capturing the water run-offs from the hills and
mountains.
We have developed an emerging low cost, low temperaturedriven adsorption (AD) cycle to produce both potable water and

K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

cooling energy simultaneously with only one heat source using

three-bed and two evaporators approach; One operates at low
pressure (0.61.2 kPa) while the other hovers at high pressure
(23 kPa) [23]. Owing to the second evaporator, the vapor uptake
of adsorbent (silica gel) improves via the pressurization effect from
the high pressure evaporator, as dictated by the isotherms of water
vapor on silica gel. Similar adsorption cycle for cooling energy production has been reported by Miyazaki et al. [24]. The cycle operates with a three-bed arrangement; each bed is in communication
with either one of the two evaporators and the condenser in a
batch-operated merry-go-round sequence. Based on our design
experience in AD plants, we present an improved numerical
model, using the mass and energy balances for the major components while process resistances are captured by isotherm and
kinetic equations based on real uptake phenomenon of the adsorbent. It is noted that the outlet temperature of each heat exchanger in the cycle is calculated by discretizing the flow into control
volumes without using the log mean temperature difference
method. In the present article, a more comprehensive analysis
of such cycles is presented using detailed mathematical model
along with a wide range operation conditions such as heat source
and cooling temperatures, and cycle time arrangements. The
effects of hot water and cycle times on the performance of low
and high pressure evaporation/adsorption processes are presented
in details.
2. Towards efficient adsorption cycles
Adsorption cycles are known to be relatively inefficient in terms
of COP and pretty bulky when compared to conventional vapor
compression cycle or absorption cycle. Most probable reasons to
such scenarios are the low or poor net uptake by the adsorbent
and relatively high heat of adsorption that strongly varies with
coverage in the adsorption cycles [2527]. Information on the
uptake capacity by most adsorbent + adsorbate pairs is available
from adsorption isotherm data which essentially exhibit the
uptake at equilibrium conditions with infinite sorption times. In
contrast, most practical adsorption cycles incorporate cycle times
in the range from 180 s to 900 s depending on the heat source temperature, thus, effectively limiting the time for the adsorbent to
execute sorption processes. The theoretical definition for the coefficient of performance, COP, of adsorption system is the ratio of the
latent heat of adsorbate to the heat of adsorption. In most adsorbent + adsorbate pair, the heat of adsorption is significantly higher

Fig. 1. Theoretical COP Vs Heat of adsorption at different coverages.

1113

than the latent heat at lower relative pressures or simply lower

uptake conditions. Thus, one way to improving the capacity to
volume or footprint ratio of adsorption cycles is implementing
cycles with enhanced net adsorption uptake. Higher uptake by
the adsorbent results in lower heat of adsorption which
approaches to latent heat of adsorbate at higher coverage and relative pressure. Fig. 1 depicts the dependent of the heat of adsorption on the adsorption coverage as well as the theoretical COP for
Type 3A silica gel and water pair. Most adsorption cooling cycles
operate at the coverage around 0.2 and it is noteworthy that the
COP can be improved by as much as 0.15 with increasing net
uptake.
On the other hand, the second law analysis on adsorption cycles
showed that regeneration or desorption process is relatively more
efficient than the adsorption process mainly due to heat transfer at
higher temperatures with faster kinetics [28,29]. However, in most
adsorption cycles, the same cycle time allocation is set for both
adsorption and desorption processes and extra heating of the bed
assembly while waiting for the completion of the adsorption process significantly contributes inefficiencies. Thus, one way to
improve the efficacy is to implement intelligent cycle time allocations or imbalanced cycle time arrangement where desorption
mode is switched off. In the present cycle, we try to implement
both enhancement schemes using two evaporators and three beds
arrangement.
3. Description of the cycle
Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagram of a 3-bed, 2-evaporator
adsorption desalination cum cooling cycle driven by low temperature hot water. The cycle comprises of three major components: the evaporators, the adsorber beds and a condenser. The
current system comprises two evaporator units which provide
higher uptake capacity of the adsorbents by pressurization effect
while producing two-temperature levels of chilled water for
latent heat removal and space or sensible cooling. Three bed
arrangement is adopted to capitalize or exploit the efficient desorption process where two adsorber beds perform adsorption
and only one bed serves as desorber at a particular cycle time.
Thus, the adsorption process is executed two-third of the cycle
time while only the remaining one-third is allocated for the
desorption process.
Hydrophilic mesoporous silica gels are packed around the heat
exchanger tubes inside there adsorber beds. These adsorbent
materials adsorb water vapor from the evaporators and desorb to
the condenser in batch-wise manner. An external cooling water
circuit is utilized to reject the heat of adsorption during the adsorption process while low temperature hot water is employed to perform desorption. The desorbed water vapor is condensed inside the
water-cooled condenser where the condensate is collected as potable water. In the present AD cycle, the adsorbent materials first
perform water vapor adsorption at lower pressure condition while
in communication with the low pressure (LP) evaporator which
produces chilled water at temperature around 79 C. This process
continues until the preset cycle time followed by the high pressure
adsorption where the adsorber is now in communication with the
high pressure (HP) evaporator where the evaporation temperature
is relatively higher than the LP evaporator. The temperature of the
outlet chilled water from the HP evaporator can be varied from
15 C to 20 C. At the end of the high pressure adsorption process,
the cycle undergoes regeneration process driven by the low temperature hot water with temperature ranging from 65 C to 85 C
that can be extracted readily from process waste heat or solar
energy. During desorption or regeneration process, the adsorber
bed is commuted to the condenser where potable water is produced and the cycle repeats. The thermophysical properties of

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K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of a 2-evaporator 3-bed adsorption cooling cum desalination cycle.

Table 1
Thermophysical properties of Type A++ silica gel.
Property

Value

Pore size (nm)

Porous volume (cm3g
1)
Surface area (m2g
1)
Average pore diameter (nm)
Apparent density (kgm
3)
pH
Specific heat capacity (kJkg
1k
1)
Thermal conductivity (Wm
1k
1)

0.87.5
0.489
863.6
2.2
700
4.0
0.921
0.198

Table 2
Energy utilization schedule of the 3-bed, 2-evaporator cycle.
Reactor

Cycle-1

SW-1

Cycle-2

SW-2

Cycle-3

SW-3

BED_1
BED_2
BED_3

LP_Ads
HP_Ads
Des

LP_Ads
Preheat
Precool

HP_Ads
Des
LP_Ads

Preheat
Precool
LP_Ads

Des
LP_Ads
HP_Ads

Precool
LP_Ads
Preheat

LP_ads = low pressure adsorption phase.

HP_ads = high pressure adsorption phase.
Des = desorption phase.
Preheat = preheating phase.
Precool = precooling phase.

the silica gel and the energy utilization scheme for the aforementioned AD cycle are given in Table 1 and Table 2 [30,31].
Seawater or brackish water is first pretreated to eliminate some
suspended particulates while the dissolved air and volatile substances are removed in the de-aeration system prior feeding to
the evaporators. The cycle consists of two evaporators using
cupronickel tubes. The evaporators are essentially shell-and-tube
types where the evaporation of the feed water is enhanced using
falling film type evaporation. The evaporation of the feed water
is initiated by the uptake phenomenon by the adsorbents when
the valve commuting the evaporator and the adsorber is opened.
The outlet chilled water from the low pressure evaporator can be
used for the space cooling or latent heat removal while that from
the high pressure evaporator is suitable for radiative cooling or
sensible cooling. The feed water inventory in the evaporator is

maintained at certain total dissolved solids (TDS) level and the liquid level to achieve the effective evaporation. The concentrated
brine is discharged periodically from the evaporators. Water vapor
from the evaporators is adsorbed by the low pressure and high
pressure adsorbers in sequence and then desorbed from the adsorbents to the condenser. Potable water is collected at the condenser.
The cycle employs classical thermal-driven evaporationcondensa
tion process utilizing low temperature waste heat. Cooling energy
is extracted from the evaporators being the evaporation temperature between 5 C and 20 C while the high-grade potable water
is obtained from the condensation. The product water from the
cycle is at ultra-pure level resulted from two-stage (evaporation
and filtering through porous material) treatment with TDS less
than 10 mg/L or parts per million (ppm) regardless of the feed
water quality [32].
4. Performance modeling
The modeling of the adsorption desalination and cooling system
is based on the heat and material balance for the energy exchange
process while the adsorption isotherm and kinetics models are
employed to predict the sorption characteristics of the silica gel
water pair [33,34]. DubininAstakhov (DA) equation is used for
the calculation of the equilibrium uptake of the water vapor by
the silica gel at specific temperature and pressure and is given as
[35,36],




n 
RT
P0
ln
q q0 exp

E
P

where q0 is the maximum adsorbed amount, E is the characteristic

energy and n is the surface heterogeneity parameter. Equilibrium
uptake of the water vapor by the adsorbent is particularly important for the determination of the transient uptake. Recently, Sun
et. al. have developed adsorption kinetic model for various sizes
and layers of silica gel based on statistical approach together with
the kinetic theory [37]. However, the linear driving force (LDF)
model is adopted for the transient uptake of the water vapor by
the silica gel, since it has been validated and successfully applied
in the previous studies [23,32]. It is given as [3840],

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K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

dq 15Ds0 exp

dt
R2p


E 
a

RT

q
q

where Ds0 is the kinetic constant for the silica gel water system, Ea is
the activation energy, Rp is the particle radius and q denotes the
instantaneous uptake. The system mass balance assuming the same
amount for adsorbed and desorbed water vapor is written as,

dM s;Ev ap
_ Brine
_ d;Cond
rm
_ s;in
m
dm
dt

here M s;Ev ap is the combined mass of saline water inside the low and
high pressure evaporators. It is noted that the feed seawater and
brine discharge are performed intermittently and thus the valuesd
and r are 1 once there is feed supply and brine discharge from
the system.
Assuming uniform temperature inside the adsorber bed, the
energy balance of the reactor bed in desorption state commuted
with the condenser is written as,

dT des
Msg cp;sg M HX;Ads cp;HX Mabe cp;a T des ; Pdes
dt
N
dqdes
Abed X
T des
T i

U des
/Q st T des ; Pcond M sg
dt
N i1

The left hand side of Eq. (4) represents the thermal mass contributed by the adsorbent, heat exchanger material and the transient amount of adsorbed phase. The first term in the right hand
side is the thermal energy released by the adsorption process while
the second term stands for the heat transfer from the desorber to
the hot water. The value of u is 1 for sorption mode and 0 otherwise. The energy balance for the hot water is given as,

ql cp;l T k

V bed dT i
A
_ hw hf T i
1
hf T i  U des bed T des
T i
m
N dt
N
5

The energy balance of the LP and HP adsorber bed in communication with respective LP and HP evaporators is written as,

dT
M sg cp;sg M HX;ads cp;HX M abe cp;a T ads;LP=HP ; P ads;LP=HP ads;LP=HP
/Q st
dt

T ads;LP=HP ; P ev ap;LP=HP M sg

dqads;LP=HP
dt

U ads ANbed

N
X

T ads;LP=HP
T i

i1

6
Similarly, the energy balance for the heat transfer fluids used for
the rejection of the heat of adsorption can be written as,

ql cp;l T k

V bed dT i
_ cw;LP=HP hf T i
1
hf T i 
m
N dt
Abed
T ads;LP=HP
T i
U ads;LP=HP
N

10

Here, U cond is the overall heat transfer coefficient of the condenser and the thermal resistances imposed by the condensation,
the conduction and convection are accounted for. Nusselt film condensation correlation [44] is applied to calculate the heat transfer
coefficient for condensation of the water vapor on the condenser
tubes and it is given as,

"

#0:25

q gk3 ql
qv hfg 38 cpl T
T w 

h 0:728 l
DlT
T w

11

The convective heat transfer coefficient is estimated using DittusBoelter correlation [45] for the single-phase cooling fluid
inside the condenser tubes and it is given as,

Nu 0:023Re0:8 Pr n

12

where n = 0.3 for cooling and 0.4 for heating phases. The overall
heat transfer coefficient for the condensation of the desorbed vapor
is,

"
U cond

#
r o
1

hfluid

ri ln r
Ai 1
i

Ao hcond
k

13

Similarly, the energy balance and the fluid temperature of the

low pressure (LP) and high pressure (HP) evaporator are written as,



cp;s T ev ap;LP=HP Ms;ev ap;LP=HP M HX;Ev ap cpHX

dT ev ap;LP=HP
dt

dq

hfg T ev ap;LP=HP Msg ads;LP=HP

dt
_ ev ap;LP=HP cp;ev ap T ev ap;LP=HP T chilled;LP=HP;in
T chilled;LP=HP;out
m

ql cp;l T k

V ev ap dT i
A
_ ev ap hf T i
1
hf T i  U ev ap ev ap
m
N dt
N
 T ev ap
T i

14

15

The evaporation of the seawater is falling film type and Han and
Fletchers correlation for corrugated tubes is used for the prediction of the heat transfer coefficient for the evaporation of seawater
in the evaporator [46].
0:2

h 0:0007Re Pr

0:65

00 0:4

t2

!
1=3

gk

16

The same equation is used for the water side heat transfer coefficient for the chilled water. Thus, the overall heat transfer coefficient for evaporation is,

"

The specific heat capacity cp is calculated as a function of adsorber temperature (Tads) or desorber temperature (Tdes) during adsorption or desorption process, respectively. Here Q st stands for the
isosteric heat of adsorption which is calculated [4143] as follow,



1=n
q
@P
Q st hfg E
ln
Tvg
qm
@T g

V cond dT i
_ cond hf T i
1
hf T i 
m
N dt
Acond
U cond
T cond
T i
N

ql cp;l T k

where v g is the specific volume of the gaseous phase, hfg is the

latent heat. The energy balance of the condenser and the cooling
water inside the tubes is given by,


dT cond
dq
cp T cond Mcond MHX;Cond cpHX
hfg T cond Msg des
dt
dt
N
Acond X
T cond
T i

U cond
N i1
9

U ev ap

#
r o
1

hfluid

r i ln ri
Ai 1

Ao hev ap
k

17

Here T 0 is the temperature of the heat exchanger. The energy

required to remove water vapors from the silica gels, Q des can be
calculated using the inlet and outlet temperatures of the heat
source supplied to the reactors, and this is given by,

Z
Q des

t cycle

_ hw cp;hw T hw T hw;in
T hw;out dt=t cycle

m

18

Concomitantly, the energy rejected to the cooling water during

the LP and HP adsorption processes can be estimated by the inlet
and outlet temperatures of cooling fluid supplied to each adsorber
and this is written as,
Z tcycle
_ cw:LP=HP cp;cw T cw;LP=HP T cw;LP=HP;out
T cw;LP=HP;in dt=t cycle
m
Q ads;LP=HP
0

19

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K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

_ cw and cp;cw indicate the mass flow rate and the specific
where m
heat capacity of cooling fluid. The cooling capacity for latent heat
removal from LP evaporator Q ev ap;LP and that for sensible cooling
from the HP evaporator are calculated as,
Z
Q ev ap;LP=HP

tcycle
0

_ chilled;LP=HP cp;chilled T ev ap;LP=HP T chilled;LP=HP;in
T chilled;LP=HP;out dt

m
t cycle

20
The heat of condensation is estimated using the condenser
cooling water temperatures as

Z
Q cond

t cycle

_ cond cp;cw T cond T cond;out
T cond;in dt

m
tcycle

21

Finally, the performance of the cycle is assessed in terms of

specific cooling power (SCP), the coefficient of performance
(COP), specific daily water production (SDWP) and the performance
ratio (PR) as follows,

Q cond t cycle s
SDWP
hfg T cond M sg
PR

1
t cycle

COP

Parameter

Nomenclature

Value

q0

Maximum adsorbed
amount
Characteristic energy
DA constant
Kinetic constant for the
silica gel water system
The activation energy
Particle radius
Hot water inlet
temperature
Cooling water inlet
temperature
Mass of silica gel
Area of adsorber bed
Thermal mass of adsorber
bed
Thermal mass of LP
evaporator
Thermal mass of HP
evaporator
Thermal mass of
condenser
Overall heat transfer
coefficient of adsorption
Overall heat transfer
coefficient of desorption
Area of LP evaporator
Area of HP evaporator
Area of condenser
Specific heat capacity of
silica gel
Cycle time
Switching time
Mass flow of cooling water
to adsorber bed
Mass flow rate to the
desorber bed
Mass flow rates of chilled
water
Mass flow rate of
condenser

0.592 (kg/kg of silica gel)

E
n
Dso
Ea
Rp
Thw,in
Tcw,in
Msg
Abed
MHX;Ads cp;HX
M HX;Ev ap cp;HX LP
M HX;Ev ap cp;HX HP
MHX;Cond cp;HX

1
tcycle

22

Table 3
Parameters used in the simulation program.

t cycle

Z
0

_ water hfg T cond

m
dt
Q des

23

Uads
Udes

t cycle

Q ev ap;LP Q ev ap;HP
dt
Q des

24

where s is the number of cycles per day. The mathematical modeling equations of the advanced adsorption desalination are solved
using the Gears BDF method from the IMSL library linked by the
simulation code written in FORTRAN Power Station, and the solver
employs a double precision routine with tolerance value of
1  10
9 [47]. Table 3 furnishes the parameters used in the simulation program.
5. Results and discussions
Adsorption desalination cum cooling cycle with dual-evaporator
using three adsorber beds is investigated in terms of transient temperature and pressure, water vapor uptake by the adsorbent. The
cooling energy production by two evaporators and the potable
water production in m3 per day per ton of adsorbent are investigated. Here, heat source temperature is maintained at 85 C while
the cooling water temperature to the adsorbers and the condenser
is set at 30 C. The chilled water inlet temperatures for the lowpressure (LP) and high-pressure (HP) evaporators are kept at
12.5 C and 25 C, respectively. Fig. 3 gives the temporal temperature profiles of the major components of the cycle. It is observed
that the averaged chilled water outlet temperature from the LPevaporator is around 7.5 C while that from the HP-evaporator is
17.3 C. The chilled water from the LP-evaporator can be used for
space cooling with dehumidification and that from the HPevaporator is suitable for sensible cooling or radiative cooling.
The transient water vapor uptakes by the adsorbers (LP and HP)
and the desorber are shown in Fig. 4. The low pressure (LP) adsorber can adsorb water vapor from the LP evaporator up to 0.13 kg/kg
of the adsorbent while the uptake by the high pressure (HP) adsorber is 0.232. It is noted that the desorber bed regenerates to
0.06 kg/kg of water vapor. The pressurization effect by the introduction of the high pressure evaporator significantly improves
the uptake of the adsorber and provides additional cooling power
at a relatively higher temperature. The net uptake over the cycle
time is about 0.18 kg/kg. The pressure profiles of the cycle can be
seen in Fig. 5. It is noted that the pressure drop along the vapor
ducts connecting the evaporators and the condenser to the adsorber beds deemed as negligible.

(Aevap)LP
(Aevap)HP
Acond
cp,sg
tcycle
tswtiching
_ cw:LP=HP
m
_ hw
m
_ chilled LP=HP
m
_ cond
m

3.105 (kJ/mole) [32]

1.1 (-)
2.54  10
4 (m2/s) [33,39]
4.2  10
4 (kJ/kg) [33,39]
0.4 (mm)
85 (C)
30 (C)
30.23 (kg)
41.78 (m2)
264.9 (kJ/K)
30.1 (kJ/K)
28.36 (kJ/K)
20.3 (kJ/K)
350 (W/m2 K) [33]
380 (W/m2 K) [33]
3.33 (m2)
2.96 (m2)
3.69 (m2)
924 (J/kg K)
600 (s)
40 (s)
1.54 (kg/s)
1.83 (kg/s)
0.42 (kg/s)
1.5 (kg/s)

The cooling capacities from the HP and LP evaporators are

shown in Fig. 6. The high-grade cooling capacity, i.e., the outlet
chilled water temperature at 7 C is found to be 7.1 kW while the
cooling capacity at a relatively high temperature (17 C) is about
10.8 kW. The transient water production rate by the AD cycle is
given in Fig. 7 where the cycle-averaged water production rate is
about 6.76 m3 per day per ton of silica gel.
To further investigate the processes involved in the cycle, the
P-T-C or Dhring diagram of the 3-bed 2-evaporator cycle is
employed and depicted in Fig. 8 highlighting the pressurization
effect to the adsorption by the high pressure evaporator, process
from 2 to 3 in the figure. The pressurization is a quick process comparted to cooling process which is rather slow, thus, a slight
increase in the temperature of the adsorber bed is detected (from
3 to 30 ). The cooling process picks up later reducing the bed temperature from 30 to 4. It should be noted that both the low- and
high- pressure adsorber beds are cooled down by the cooling water
with the same temperature. Hence, the instantaneous pressurization of the adsorber bed occurs at constant temperature followed
by a slight temperature increase at constant pressure i.e., high
pressure adsorber pressure, due to slower heat transfer process
and then cooling down again close to the low-pressure adsorber
temperature. At the beginning of the preheating process, the adsorber pressure reduces with slight decrease in the uptake. The preheating process continues from 5 to 6. The preheating phase of
the adsorbent makes the pressure of the system increased. When

K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

Fig. 3. Temporal temperature profiles of the major components of the AD cycle.

Fig. 4. Water vapor uptake map of the AD cycle.

Fig. 5. The pressure profiles of the AD cycle.

1117

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K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

Fig. 6. The cooling energy production by the low-pressure and high-pressure evaporators.

Fig. 7. Water production rate of the AD cycle.

Fig. 8. The P-T-C diagram of a 3-bed 2-evaporator AD cycle.

K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

the valve between the bed and the condenser is open, the sudden
depressurization of the adsorbent results in the pressure swing
desorption (67) followed by the conventional thermal swing
desorption and condensation processes. The desorption process is
followed by the precooling (81) and the cycle competes with
the low-pressure adsorption (12) process. It is noted that the
uptake by the silica gel during low-pressure adsorption process
can reach about 17% of its dry mass. With the introduction of the
high-pressure adsorption, it adsorbs up to 30%.
The performance of the present cycle at assorted cooling water
and hot water inlet temperatures for a fixed cycle time at 780 s is
presented in Fig. 9. Fig 9a shows the specific cooling power (SCP)
from both evaporators where it is observed that the SCP of the
low-pressure evaporator is relatively lower and is more sensitive
to the change in the hot and cooling water inlet temperatures as
compared to that of the high-pressure evaporator. At relatively
higher adsorption temperature such as 33 C, the adsorption performance at low pressure is significantly poor reserving the
adsorption potential for the next cycle when it is exposed to the
high pressure evaporator.
The specific daily water production (SDWP) for such operation
conditions is shown in Fig. 9(b) where higher water production
rate is recorded with decreasing cooling water temperature and
increasing hot water inlet temperature. This phenomenon is consistent with adsorption performance of the silica gel-water pair
where lower adsorption temperature promotes improved adsorption and higher hot water temperature translates to better regen-

1119

eration process. Fig. 9(c) provides the coefficient of performance

(COP) for LP-, HP-evaporators and the overall system. Again, it is
observed that the COP for the LP-evaporator is sensitive to the
changes in the cooling and heating sources as compared to that
of the HP-evaporator. For the LP-evaporator, the coefficient of performance increases with the increase in the heat source temperature with cooler adsorption temperature. The changes in the COP
for the high-pressure evaporator with heat source temperature
are marginal and thus the system COP is largely dominated by
the low-pressure evaporator. It is observed that the performance
ratio of the cycle is more or less insensitive to the temperature
changes ranging between 0.61 and 0.67. However, the performance
ratio slightly improves at lower hot water and lower cooling water
inlet temperatures.
The performance of the cycle for a fixed cooling water temperature at 30 C with assorted cycle times and the hot water inlet
temperatures is depicted in Fig. 10. It is observed that shorter cycle
time is preferable for improved cooling capacity from low-pressure
evaporator with low chilled water temperature while the effect of
cycle time on the cooling power production from the high-pressure
evaporator is marginal. Again, the pressurization of the adsorption
process from the high-pressure evaporator is more influential on
the adsorption uptake, thus attaining near saturation conditions
of the adsorbent when connected to the high-pressure evaporator.
The specific water production rate of the cycle at assorted cycle
times and hot water inlet temperatures is given in Fig 10(b) where
increasing water production rate is detected at higher hot water

Fig. 9. Performance of the cycle at assorted cooling and hot water inlet temperatures for cycle time 780 s.

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K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

Fig. 10. Performance of the cycle at assorted cycle times and hot water inlet temperatures for 30 C cooling water inlet temperature.

temperatures with some optimal cycle times for a specific hot

water inlet temperature. The highest SDWP is observed to be
about 6.1 m3/day/ton of silica gel at 85 C hot water inlet
temperature.
Similarly, the best system COP, i.e., 0.82 (Fig. 10c) of the system
is recorded for the highest hot water inlet temperature with longer
cycle times while the COPs for low-pressure and high-pressure
evaporators are recorded to be 0.33 and 0.51, respectively. It is
noted that the present definition of the system COP represents
combined cooling capacity from both low- and high-pressure
evaporators indiscriminating the quality of cooling in terms of
temperature. The COP of the present system is relatively high
due to two possible reasons: (1) the near saturation adsorption
of water vapor by the adsorbent from low- and high-pressure
evaporators where the heat of adsorption approaches to latent heat
and (2) the effective utilization of the efficient regeneration process with fast adsorption kinetics in only the adsorber bed with
only one-third of the cycle time while the other two adsorber beds
are performing adsorption process, thus fulfilling the primary
objectives of the cycle. However, it should be noted that fast and
effective desorption/adsorption does not directly translate to better energy efficiency and thus relatively higher performance ratio
is recorded at lower hot water inlet temperatures as shown in
Fig 10(d).
The performance of the cycle is further evaluated at constant
hot water inlet temperature for various cycle times and cooling
water inlet temperatures and the results are shown in Fig. 11.

The results confirm the dependent of cooling power from the

low-pressure evaporator on the cycle time and the cooling water
inlet temperature while the high-pressure evaporator performs
effectively resulted from the pressurization resulting relatively
steadfast cooling capacity. The dependent of the specific water production rate on the cycle time can be seen in Fig 11(b) where the
SDWP in general increases with decreasing cooling water inlet
temperatures. Supplying lower cooling water temperature at
longer cycle times provides the best operation conditions in terms
of both COP and PR. With two-temperature levels of evaporation
and pressurized adsorption environment in the cycle, the coefficient of performance (COP) of the cycle is found to be approaching
0.84 while the highest performance ratio for desalination is 0.67.
However, the results highlight that higher heat source temperature
is preferable for effective operation with higher COP while the COP
is as low as 0.54 at shorter cycle time with relatively higher cooling
water temperature giving significantly lower SCP from lowpressure evaporator.
Fig. 12 shows the ratio of specific cooling capacity by lowpressure to high pressure evaporators highlighting the efficacy of
the adsorption uptake when introduced to high-pressure evaporator. For a fixed hot water inlet temperature such as 85 C, the cooling capacity ratio increases translating the performance
improvement by the low pressure evaporator resulted from effective regeneration process. However, the cooling capacity production from the evaporators becomes significantly imbalanced
when operating at lower hot water inlet temperature with shorter

K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

1121

Fig. 11. Performance of the cycle at assorted cycle times and cooling water inlet temperatures for 85 C hot water inlet temperature.

Fig. 12. The ratio of specific cooling capacity by low-pressure to high pressure evaporators.

cycle times. The results also indicate that intelligent design concept is required for the desired cooling capacity production. In
other words, the cycle provides flexibility in the selection of the
cooling capacity between the low and high grade chilled water.
For higher specific cooling capacity ratio, relatively larger area for
the low-pressure evaporator is required.

6. Conclusions
An advanced adsorption cooling cum desalination cycle with 3bed 2-evaporator has been successfully developed. The AD cycle
converts low temperature heat sources to cooling energy and
desalted water. Two levels of chilled water temperatures are

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K. Thu et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 101 (2016) 11111122

produced; one evaporator is at 79 C and the other 1820 C,

which are suitable for latent and sensible cooling. Concomitantly,
the cycle produces high grade potable water at a rate of 6.5 m3
per ton of silica gel per day. The performance of the cycle at various
cooling water, hot water and cycle times is presented. Owing to the
unique AD cycle, the system coefficient of performance (COP) is
found to be 0.84 approaching to theoretical limit and the corresponding performance ratio of desalination is 0.67. It is observed
that the performance of the LP-evaporator both in terms of SCP
and COP is rather sensitive to the operating conditions such as heat
source temperature and the cycle times while the high-pressure
evaporator performs relatively steadfast. The specific cooling
capacity ratio analysis reveals the imbalance in the cooling power
production from the evaporators translating the design flexibility
or customizability of the cycle depending on the actual cooling
load demands.
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from
the Kyushu University Program for Leading Graduate School, Green
Asia Education Center, Japan and the National Research Foundation
(NRF), Singapore, under the research grant (R-265-000-466-281).
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