Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Desalination
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/desal

Numerical simulation and performance investigation of an advanced adsorption

desalination cycle
Kyaw Thu a, Anuthosh Chakraborty b, Young-Deuk Kim a, Aung Myat c,
Bidyut Baran Saha d, Kim Choon Ng a, c,
a

Water Desalination and Reuse Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue 639798, Singapore
Mechanical Engineering Department, National University of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1 117576, Singapore
d
Mechanical Engineering Department, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
b
c

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 31 January 2012
Received in revised form 15 April 2012
Accepted 18 April 2012
Available online 14 May 2012
Keywords:
Adsorption
Desalination
Waste heat recovery
Heat and mass recovery

a b s t r a c t
Low temperature waste heat-driven adsorption desalination (AD) cycles offer high potential as one of the
most economically viable and environmental-friendly desalination methods. This article presents the development of an advanced adsorption desalination cycle that employs internal heat recovery between the evaporator and the condenser, utilizing an encapsulated evaporatorcondenser unit for effective heat transfer. A
simulation model has been developed based on the actual sorption characteristics of the adsorbentadsorbate
pair, energy and mass balances applied to the components of the AD cycle. With an integrated design, the temperature in the evaporator and the vapor pressurization of the adsorber are raised due to the direct heat recovery from the condenser, resulting in the higher water production rates, typically improved by as much as three
folds of the conventional AD cycle. In addition, the integrated design eliminates two pumps, namely, the condenser cooling water and the chilled water pumps, lowering the overall electricity consumption. The performance of the cycle is analyzed at assorted heat source and cooling water temperatures, and different cycle
times as well as the transient heat transfer coefcients of the evaporation and condensation.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nomenclature

q"
_
m

A
c
c
c0
COP
cp
Csf
Dso
Ea
g
hf
hfg
k

density
heat ux
mass ow rate
ag which governs mode of operation
ag which governs mode of operation
viscosity
surface tension
number of cycles per day
area
uptake by the adsorbent material
the equilibrium uptake
the limiting uptake
the Coefcient of Performance
specic heat capacity
a constant of Rohsenow correlation
a kinetic constant for the silica gel water system
activation energy of surface diffusion
gravitational acceleration
sensible heat
latent heat
the thermal conductivity

kg m
W m 2
kg s 1

kg m 1 s 1
N m 1

m2
kg kg 1
kg kg 1
kg kg 1

J kg 1 K 1

m2 s 1
kJ mol 1
m s 2
kJ kg 1
kJ kg 1
W m 1 K 1

Corresponding author at: Mechanical Engineering Department, National University

of Singapore, 9 Engineering Drive 1 117576, Singapore. Tel.: + 65 6516 2214; fax: + 65
6779 1459.
E-mail address: mpengkc@nus.edu.sg (K.C. Ng).
0011-9164/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.desal.2012.04.021

L
M
n
P
P0
PR
Q
Qst
r
R
Rp
SDWP
T
t
T0
UOverall
v
vp
X
Subscripts
a
ads
Brine
ch
Cond
cw
d

Length
mass
number of beds
pressure
reference pressure
performance ratio
the total heat or energy
isosteric heat of adsorption
radius
Universal gas constant
average radius of silica gel
specic daily water production
temperature
time
reference temperature
overall heat transfer coefcient
specic volume
the pore volume
concentration

m
kg

Pa
Pa

J or W
kJ kg 1
m
J K 1 mol 1
m
m3 t 1 day 1
K
s
K
W m 2 K 1
m3 kg 1
cm3 g 1
mg L 1

adsorbate
adsorption
concentrated brine
chilled water
condenser
cooling water
distillate
(continued on next page)

210
Evap
g
hw
HX
in
l
des
out
reg
s
sg
ss
v
w

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

evaporator
gaseous phase
hot water
heat exchanger
inlet
liquid
desorption
outlet
regeneration
salt/adsorbent
silica gel
stainless steel
vapor
wall

1. Introduction
Potable water is a basic and essential resource for agriculture, industrial and domestic activities [1]. With increasing global economic
(GDP) and population growth, fresh water demand of the world is
expected to grow annually at 2% to 6900 billion m 3 (Bnm 3) in 2030
from today's 4500 Bnm 3, as shown in Fig. 1, while the existing sustainable supply from the earth's natural water cycle is 4200 Bnm 3
[28]. Water scarcity is the severest in the semi-arid and desert regions as well as land scarce countries. The shortfall for water supply
in such regions, hitherto, must be provided by desalination of seawater, brackish and recycled water sources. Widely available methods
for desalting are the multi-stage ashing (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED), reverse osmosis (RO), vapor compression (VC), electrodialysis (ED), etc. Table 1 lists the desalination methods and their production capacities [9].
However, only two of the aforementioned desalination technologies
namely, multi-stage ash (MSF) and reverse osmosis (RO) technologies, dominate the desalination market for large-scale production. The
RO technology represents 59% of total 14,451 desalination plants with
60 million cubic meters per day desalination capacity of the world
while the MSF has 27% share [9,10]. The MSF plants are widely used in
the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions, and this can be attributed to two factors: rstly, the higher seawater salinity in the regions
and the frequent surface contamination from bacteria blooms (algae/
red tides); secondly, the availability of low cost fossil fuels in the regions
presents an easy integration of thermal desalination methods with the
steam or gas turbine power plants. These MSF or MED plants could be
coupled to the low temperature steam emanating from the steam turbines, making the bottoming cycle of a co-generation concept [11,12].
Being a thermally-driven method, evaporative ashing occurs within
the bulk liquid of the pressure-cascaded stages, and the generated
vapor of each MSF stage releases its heat of condensation to the

Fig. 1. Global water demand and existing supply.

Table 1
Desalination methods and production capacities.
Desalination method

Total capacity (106 m3 day 1)

% by capacity

Reverse osmosis (RO)

Multi-stage ashing (MSF)
Multi-effect distillation (MED)
Electrodialysis (ED)
Others
Total

37
17
6
2
1
63

59
27
9
4
1
100

seawater feed that ows in the condenser tubes, and thus, fresh water
is formed as the condensate. Since the latent heat from the condensed
steam is re-utilized multiple times for the pre-heating of the incoming
seawater feed, the MSF or MED could achieve a high gained output
ratio [13].
The membrane-based RO desalination systems utilize a pressure
differential to overcome the osmotic pressure of saline solution, typically 1015 bar for brackish water systems and 50 to 80 bar for seawater systems [14,15]. Electrically-driven pumps are used to apply
the hydrostatic pressure that is higher than the osmotic pressure to
the feed seawater at one side of the membrane, and permeate with
lower TDS is produced on the other side. Over the recent years, improved membrane technologies and better energy recovery systems
have yielded RO systems to have specic energy consumption between 2.5 and 3.5 kWh m 3 [16,17]. Despite the low energy consumption, the drawbacks of RO systems are the product water quality
associating with residuals of boron, chlorides, and bromides, as well as
the high maintenance of the mechanical equipment and membrane lifespan [18]. Besides, all the energy intensive desalination methods have
the inevitable emissions of greenhouse gasses (CO2, CH4 and N2O)
from the burning of fossil fuels at power plants, and they contribute to
the long-term and serious environmental issues. Hence, there is motivation for the development of novel desalination technologies that are
both energy efcient and yet environment-friendly. There are, however,
new emerging methods for desalination such as the membrane distillation (MD), forward osmosis (FO) and adsorption desalination (AD). The
key thrusts of the emerging desalination methods are (i) to reduce the
specic energy consumption, (ii) to minimize the use of chemicals for
water treatment, and (iii) to achieve low carbon dioxide emission and
zero liquid discharge when the cycles are operated.
In this paper, we present the development of an advanced adsorption desalination (AD) cycle which is one type of thermal desalination
[19,20]. In AD cycles, the principles of adsorptiondesorption by the
adsorbentadsorbate pair is applied for the evaporation of the saline
water and condensation of the vapor at lower temperatures typically
between 5 C and 45 C. The adsorbent materials used are hydrophilic
and highly porous with huge surface area typically between 500 and
800 m 2 g 1. The high vapor afnity of the adsorbent enables the water
vapor adsorption on the pore surfaces making the saline solution evaporated. The adsorbent materials could be housed in vacuumed reactor
beds that are operated in batch-type cycle where concomitantly, one
or more beds could be in communication via vapor valves with an evaporator and a condenser [21]. As vapor is drawn from the evaporator
chamber, de-salting occurs from the saline solution by the evaporative
boiling. This process is accompanied by the cooling of the saline solution
in the evaporator causing the solution temperature to drop. An external
heat source is supplied to maintain the solution temperature and
thus, the cycle generates cooling energy that could be harnessed
for air-conditioning or dehumidication. Hydrophilic porous silica
gels (granular-type) used in AD cycle have pore surface area up to
860 m 2 g 1 with pore volume 0.48 cm 3 g 1 [22]. To regenerate
the saturated adsorbent for the next operation, a low-temperature
heat source, typically less than 85 C, is supplied to the reactor vessel
via a heat exchanger assembly. These adsorption and desorption
processes are batch-operated procedures where the half cycle time
interval could be varied up to 15 minutes. The adsorption process is

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

an exothermic process and thus the adsorbent in reactor vessel

has to be cooled so as to sustain the vapor uptake by the silica
gels. A cooling tower water circuit is used to reject the heat of
adsorption.
We exploit the higher uptake of silica gels by subjecting them to a
higher vapor pressure in the adsorption cycle. An increase in the
vapor uptake can be easily realized from their isotherm characteristics. The novelty of this design is that such a pressurization effect is
readily achieved by the recovery of latent heat of condensation (at
condenser) into the evaporator unit which is built into the condenser.
The evaporative cooling (as initiated by the adsorption process)
is directly dumped into the condenser tubes which aided the
condensation. No pump is needed to achieve the heat transfer between
them and any excess heat from condenser can be rejected by a heat
exchanger, which is cooled by a cooling tower. The present article
discusses the development of the advanced AD cycle by a detailed
numerical model. These adsorption, heat and mass transfer processes
of the cycle are realistically captured with the sorption characteristics
of adsorbent, energy and mass balances of the working uids. The
cycle performance is analyzed at assorted heat source and coolant
temperatures, and the useful outputs are described by parameters
such as the specic daily water production (SDWP) and the performance ratio (PR).
2. Description of the advanced AD cycle
Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagram of an advanced AD cycle with
an evaporatorcondenser heat recovery scheme. The major components of the cycle are (i) the feed water tank, (ii) two adsorber/
desorber beds, (iii) the evaporatorcondenser device, (iv) potable
water collection tank and (v) the brine discharge tank. Each adsorber
bed contains adsorbent materials (silica gels) packed around the
tube-n heat exchangers. The reactor beds could be communicated
to the evaporator or the condenser during the half-cycle periods via
a series of electro-pneumatic vapor-valves.
The batch-operated AD cycle comprises two half-cycles and a
switching interval in between. During the rst half-cycle time, the
gas valve, namely GV-01 of Fig. 2, connecting the adsorber bed-1
and the evaporator, is set to open. Concomitantly, the other gas
valve GV-04 of Fig. 2, linking the adsorber-2 and the condenser, is
also opened. All other valves, namely GV-02 and GV-03, remain
closed in this period but they would be operated in the next half-

211

cycle, and vice versa. Such an operational scheme allows the designated beds to alternate between the adsorption and desorption processes in these half-cycles. Owing to the high afnity for water
vapor, unsaturated silica gels contained within the designated beds
rapidly draw water vapor from the evaporator, lowering its vapor
pressure of seawater to initiate boiling. The phenomenon of vapor deposition on pores of adsorbent is an exothermic process, caused by kinetic energy of molecules being trapped by surface forces. Thus, to
maintain continuous uptake of vapor, external cooling is introduced
to cool the adsorbent. Conversely, during desorption process the designated beds are supplied with a heat source, increasing the kinetic
energy of vapor molecules. Excited molecules leave the pore surfaces
when the activation energy of adsorption is exceeded. In such a desorption process, the beds are set in communication with the condenser, allowing the dislodged vapor to condense on the cooler
surfaces to form distillate.
In between the half-cycles, a switching interval is incorporated
where the designated adsorber and desorber beds are either preheated or pre-cooled for about 30 to 40 s, respectively. Table 2 illustrates the energy utilization schedule of an AD cycle operating with
a 2-bed mode. The half-cycle time of the AD cycle could be varied
from 4 to 15 minutes depending on the amount of distillate or cooling
needed from the cycle. These half-cycle intervals are also a function of
the heat source and cooling water temperatures.
The integrated evaporatorcondenser device of AD cycle is made
either of a shell-and-tube type or plate-type heat exchanger. In the
former exchanger, evaporation of saline water occurs in the shellside of heat exchanger while condensation of vapor follows on the
tube-side which acts as the heat source. The evaporator could be fed
with either the pre-treated sea or brackish water and this process
could be intermittent or continuous depending on the size of plant.
For an integrated design, the use of coolant circuits to cool the
condenser or to heat the evaporator, as found in a conventional AD
cycle [23], is now made redundant, resulting in signicant savings
in the pumping cost. This arrangement reduces the heat transfer resistances, improving the evaporation rates of the seawater solution.
Another advantage derived from the integrated design is the pressurization effect given to adsorption process, caused by a higher vapor
pressure of evaporator. This has a direct effect on increasing the
vapor uptake of silica gel, as observed in the isotherms. Thus, the advantages of the advanced AD cycle with integrated condenserevaporator are summarized as follows:

Fig. 2. The advanced adsorption desalination (AD) cycle with an integrated evaporatorcondenser device. The unlled symbols indicate open status while the lled symbols designate closed status.

212

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

Table 2
Energy utilization schedule of an AD cycle with 2-bed operation mode.
Adsorber

Cycle-1

SW-1

Cycle-2

SW-2

BED-1
BED-2

Ads
Des

Pre-heat
Pre-cool

Des
Ads

Pre-cool
Pre-heat

Ads: adsorption, Des: desorption, Pre-heat: preheating, Pre-cool: precooling.

i) a reduction in the parasitic electrical power consumption with

the elimination of pumps for chilled and cooling water circuits,
ii) an improvement in the adsorption capacity of silica gel due to
the pressurization effect of evaporator,
iii) a lowering of the effective condensation temperature in condenser and this tends to desorb more vapor during the desorption process, and
iv) improvement in heat transfer resistances enables the AD cycle
to operate at even lower heat source temperatures, typically 50
to 80 C.

where Xs,in and Xs,Evap are the concentration of the feed and seawater
in the evaporator, XD is the concentration of the vapor while the
coefcients and are the ags for the feed water and brine discharge
whose values are 1 whenever the feed is supplied or brine is
discharged from the system. The value of n indicates the number of
adsorber beds performing adsorption process. The values of these
operational ags are listed in Table 4. In this simulation, we adopted
an AD cycle with four physical adsorber beds operating as a 2-bed
machine where each pair of two beds performs adsorption process
and the other pair as desorption process. This conguration is
selected in order to conduct the performance comparison with the
experimental data taken from a 4-bed AD cycle operating at 2-bed
mode. It is noted that the same amount of adsorbent inventory as
the experimental plant is used in the simulation, and thus the value
of n is 2.
In AD cycles, the evaporation of seawater is attributed to the uptake of the water vapor by the adsorbent materials and thermal energy recovered from the condensation is used to maintain the
evaporation process at certain temperature level. The energy balance
of the evaporator is written as

3. Mathematical modeling
A mathematical model on an advanced AD cycle that employs an
integrated evaporatorcondenser design for the internal heat recovery process was developed to access the performance of the cycle. Isotherm and kinetics properties of the silica gelwater pair are used to
predict the uptake of the water vapor by the silica gels at specic temperature and pressure conditions. Mass and energy balances of the
components involved in the cycle are further employed to evaluate
the model. Type A ++ silica gel was used as the adsorbent and
Table 3 gives the physical properties the selected silica gel. The overall mass balance of the cycle is given by
dM s;Evap
_ s;in m
_ d;Cond m
_ Brine ;
m
dt

_ s;in is
Here, Ms,Evap is the amount of seawater in the evaporator, m
_ d;Cond and m
_ Brine are the
the mass ow rate of feed sea water, and m
mass ow rates of potable water extracted from the condenser and
concentrated brine rejected from the evaporator, respectively. The
feed seawater is intermittently pumped into the evaporator depending on the amount and level of seawater to sustain the effective evaporation while the concentrated brine is discharged once the
concentration of the saline water in the evaporator reaches the predetermined limit which is determined based on the recovery ratio.
The mass and salt balances for the evaporator of the AD cycle are
given as
Feed

Brine rejection

z}|{
dM s;Evap z}|{
_ s;in m
_ Brine
m
dt

4
where MHX,Evap is the total mass of the evaporator, Msg is the mass of
_ Brine is the mass ow rate of brine discharge, and cads desilica gel, m
notes water vapor uptake by the adsorbent. The rst term in the
right hand side of Eq. (4) represents the sensible heat by the supplied
feed seawater, the second term stands for the latent heat removal by
the uptake of adsorbent, and the third and fourth terms denote the
energy for the evaporation through heat recovery from the condensation process and the sensible heat removal by the brine discharge. The
specic heat (cp,s) and enthalpy (hf) of seawater are calculated as
functions of temperature, pressure and salinity [24].
As the evaporated seawater is associated onto the solid adsorbent
in the adsorber bed by the ow of external cooling uid during
adsorption period, while the desorbed water vapor is dissociated
from the solid adsorbent by the ow of heating uid during
desorption period, thermal energy is exchanged between cooling/
heating uid and the adsorption/desorption bed. The energy balance
equation of the adsorber bed connected with the evaporator as well
as that for the desorber bed commuting with the condenser is given
by
h

Vapour uptake by adsorption processes

z}|{
dcads
M sg
n
dt

h


i dT


Evap
_ s;in
M s;Evap cp;s T Evap ; X s;Evap MHX;Evap cp;HX
hf T Evap ; X s;Evap m
dt

 dc




ads
_ Brine ;
n hfg T Evap
M sg U EC A T Cond T Evap hf T Evap ; X s;Evap m
dt

i dT
dcads=des
ads=des
Msg cp;sg M HX cp;HX Mabe cp;a
n:Q st M sg

dt
;

  dt

_ cw=hw cp T cw=hw
m
T cw=hw;in T cw=hw;out
5

dX s;Evap
dc
_ s;in X s;Evap m
_ Brine n X D ads M sg ;
Ms;Evap
X s;in m
dt
dt

3
Table 4
Values of the indicators for changing the operation mode of the AD cycle.

Table 3
Physical properties of Type A++ silica gel.
Property

Value

Pore size(nm)
Porous volume(cm3 g 1)
Surface area(m2 g 1)
Average pore diameter (nm)
Apparent density (kg m 3)
pH
Specic heat capacity (kJ kg 1 k 1)
Thermal conductivity (W m 1 k 1)

0.87.5
0.476
863.6
2.2
700
4.0
0.921
0.198

Mode

Parameter

4-Bed cycle operating at 2-bed mode

Operation

2
1
0
1
0
2
1
0
1
0

Switching

(Charging sea water)

(Otherwise)
(Brine discharge)
(Otherwise)
(Charging sea water)
(Otherwise)
(Brine discharge)
(Otherwise)

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

where Tcw/hw,out is the outlet water temperature of the adsorber/desorber bed, and Qstand cp,a are the isosteric heat of adsorption and the
specic heat of the adsorbed phase [25].

 1=n
 
c
P
Tvg
;
Q st hfg E ln
cm
T g
(

1 1

T vg

cp;a cp;g

vg

! )

Q st
P

Q
T

E
a
RT

UA
;
_ cp T 0
m

 
c c ;

where Ds0 denes a pre-exponential factor of the efcient water diffusivity in the adsorbent, Ea represents the activation energy, R is
the universal gas constant and Rp is the average radius of the adsorbent grains. Kinetic data were taken from [26,27]. Hence the adsorption uptake at equilibrium condition is expressed as a function of
pressure (P) and temperature (T). These experimentally measured
data are tted using the DubininAstakhov equation, i.e.,
  n 
 
RT
P

0
c c exp
ln s
;
E
P

10

where c* is the adsorbed adsorbate at equilibrium conditions, and c 0

denotes the limiting amount of adsorbate uptake.
During desorption process, the desorbed water vapor from the adsorbent is delivered to the condenser as latent heat, and this energy is
internally recovered for the evaporation process. In the modeling, it is
assumed that the condenser tube surface is able to hold a certain
amount of condensate. Beyond this, the condensate would ow into
the collection tank via a U-tube. The energy balance of the condenser
which is in communication with the desorber bed is thus given by
h

MCond cp T Cond M HX;Cond cp;HX

i dT

Cond

dt

dM d
dc
n hfg T Cond des Msg
dt
dt
11


A T Cond T Evap ;

hf T Cond
U Overall

hCond

r 2 ln rr1
2

r2 1
r 1 hEvap

!1

where MHX,Cond is the total mass of the condenser, Md is the mass of distillate extracted, and cdes denotes the incoming regenerated water
vapor from the desorption processes. It is assumed that the integrated
evaporatorcondenser is fabricated using stainless steel materials to
mitigate any corrosion by the seawater to the evaporator side. For the
tube walls of the evaporatorcondenser, a similar energy balance gives

 dT
2 kL
w2
hCond ACond T Cond T w2
m cp
T w2 T w1 ;
ss dt
ln rr1

12


 dT

 2 kL
w1
hEvap AEvap T w1 T Evap
T T w1 ;
mcp
ss dt
ln rr1 w2

13

where hCondand hEvap are heat transfer coefcients of the condensation

and the evaporation of the evaporatorcondenser device. Tw1 is the

14

The heat transfer coefcient for the evaporation of the saline solution is predicted using the modied Rohsenow correlation for subatmospheric pressures [28],
2
3
!
v 0:33
C sf hfg Prsl 6 q}load u

u 
7
4
5
t
C pf
l hfg g

T w T

where T0(=Tads/Tdes) is the temperature of the heat exchanger.

The adsorption/desorption rate is calculated from the knowledge
of adsorption equilibrium and kinetics, and it is given by the linear
driving force (LDF) equation
dc 15Ds0 e

dt
R2p

U Overall

where vg is the volume of the gaseous phase, hfg is the latent heat, and
cp,g is the specic heat of gaseous phase. The outlet temperature of the
water from each heat exchanger is estimated using log mean temperature difference method and it is given by
T out T 0 T in T 0 exp

temperature of the tube wall in the evaporator side while Tw2is the temperature of the condenser side tube wall, k is the thermal conductivity
of the tube material, and L is the length of the tubes. The overall heat
transfer coefcient of the evaporatorcondenser unit is predicted as

st


P;

213

15





P 0:293 Awetted 0:0984

;
P atm
Abase
where s = 1 and this correlation is valid for the evaporating pressures
ranging from 1.8 kPa to 10 kPa that is the evaporation pressure range
of the present AD cycle. Nusselt lm condensation correlation is applied to calculate the heat transfer coefcient for the condensation
of the water vapor and it is given as
h
i30:25
2
3
l gk l v hfg 38 cpl TT w
5 ;
h 0:4334
D TT w

16

Here it is assumed that the condenser tubes can hold liquid condensate for a considerable amount. The values of all the coefcients
and the parameters used in the simulation are listed Table 5.
The energy required to desorb water vapor from the silica gels,
Qdes, is calculated using the inlet and outlet temperatures of the
heat source supplied to the reactors, and this is given by,\


_ hw cp;hw T hw;in T hw;out ;
Q des m

17

Table 5
Values of the parameters used in the simulation program.
Parameter

Value

Unit

q0
E
n
Dso
Ea (kJ kg 1)
Rp
Hot water inlet temperature
Cooling water inlet temperature
Mass of silica gel per bed, Msg
Adsorber/desorber bed heat transfer area
Tube length
MHXcp, HX
Uads
Udes
Integrated evaporatorcondenser
Number of tubes (stainless steel)
Ltube
r2
r1
Awetted
Abase
ACond
cp
k
Operation conditions
tcycle
tswitching

0.592
3.105
1.1
2.54 10 4
4.2 10 4
0.4
6585
30
36
41.7
0.576
184.1
250 [29]
240 [29]

kg kg 1 of silica gel
kJ mol 1

m2 s 1
kJ kg 1
mm
C
C
kg
m2
m
kJ K 1
W m 2 K 1
W m 2 K 1

60
2.0
8.1
7.1
9.35
4.67
5.35
500
16.2

m
mm
mm
m2
m2
m2
J kg 1 K 1
W m 1 K 1

300
20

s
s

214

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

_ hw indicates the mass ow rate and cp,hw denes the specic

where m
heat capacity of heating uid. Concomitantly, the energy rejected to
the cooling water during the adsorption process is estimated by the
inlet and outlet temperatures of cooling uid supplied to the other reactor and is written as


_ cw cp;cw T cw;out T cw;in ;
Q ads m

18

_ cw and cp,cw indicate the mass ow rate and the specic heat
where m
capacity of cooling uid. At the same time, the heat of evaporationQEvap and the condensation energy QCond rejected at the condenser are
given by,


Q Evap hEvap AEvap T w1 T Evap ;

19

Q Cond hCond ACond T Cond T w2 ;

20

where hEvap and hCond are the heat transfer coefcients of the evaporation and condensation processes, AEvap is the total heat transfer area
of the evaporator side, and ACond is the condenser side surface area in
the evaporatorcondenser device. The performance of the AD cycle is
given by the specic daily water production (SDWP) and the performance ratio (PR), dened here as the ratio of useful effects to the energy input, i.e., as follows:
t cycle

SDWP
0

PR

1
t cycle

Q Cond
dt;
hfg T Cond M sg

t cycle

_ d;Cond hfg T Cond

m
dt;
Q des

21

Fig. 3. Predicted temperaturetime histories of the adsorber, desorber, evaporator and

condenser of the advanced AD cycle.

pair, the higher adsorption pressure enhances the adsorption capacity

by the adsorbent [30]. The improvement in the uptake of the adsorbent tends to higher rejection of adsorption heat and subsequently
the adsorption temperature. It is observed that the adsorber bed temperature is relatively high at 44 C while the condensation temperature is found to be about 48 C. The pressure prole of the cycle is
given in Fig. 4, and it is noted that the operating pressure range of

22

These set of energy and mass balance equations are solved using
the Adams-Moulton's method in the DIVPAG subroutine of the IMSL
math library. A double precision accuracy was applied and the calculation tolerance is set to 1 10 12. The program code runs on the
platform of FORTRAN PowerStation is used to call the numerical solver subroutines from IMSL to solve a set of differential equations simultaneously. As the AD cycle is operated in a batch manner, the
connections or pointers for linking one sub-routine to another have
to be carefully directed so that the correct boundary conditions are
maintained during the computation. The cyclic steady state condition
can be achieved in 4 to 5 cycles after the commencement of
computation.
4. Results and discussion
The advanced AD cycle with internal heat recovery between the
condenser and the evaporator with an evaporatorcondenser device
is investigated at various operation conditions such as different
cycle times, hot and cooling water temperatures, different hot and
cooling water ow rates. Fig. 3 shows the temperaturetime history
of the adsorber, desorber, evaporator and condenser of the advanced
AD cycle at the cyclic-steady-state conditions. It is noted that the present AD cycle consists of four physical beds where one pair of two adsorber beds performs adsorption process while another pair is under
desorption process. The horizontal axis represents the time in seconds, and the vertical axis gives the temperature. The temperatures
of the heat source and cooling water are maintained at 85 C and
30 C, respectively while the half-cycle time is set at 300 s and the
switching time 20 s. Owing to the integral evaporatorcondenser design, the pressurization effect on the adsorptionevaporation process
is observed. This is achieved by the increase in the evaporation temperature which is about 42 C through heat recovery from condensation process. According to the isotherm properties of silica gelwater

Fig. 4. The temporal pressure proles of the advanced AD cycle.

Fig. 5. Temperature proles of the evaporatorcondenser device in advanced AD cycle.

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

the advanced AD cycle is elevated to 712 kPa in contrast with the

conventional cycle where the pressure ranges from 3 to 7 kPa. The
performance of the evaporatorcondenser device is presented in
Fig. 5 where the maximum temperature difference between the evaporator and the condenser wall is observed to be 1.3 C.
To further understand the processes involved in the advanced AD
cycle, temperaturepressureconcentration diagram (Dhring Diagram) is applied to track the performance of the cycle. Fig. 6 exhibits
the Dhring diagram of the advanced AD cycle where it is compared
with a conventional AD cycle. It is noted that the advanced cycle operates at elevated pressure regions i.e., 712 kPa. The adsorbent uptake
in the advanced cycle reaches up to 40% of the dry mass of the adsorbent while the vapor in the adsorbent material is about 25% during
desorption cycle. The net uptake by the adsorbent for a complete
cycle is about 15%. In a conventional AD cycle, separate evaporator
and condenser units are used for the evaporation of seawater and
condensation of the desorbed water with no heat recovery between
them. The maximum uptake by the adsorbent in such cycle is about
18% whereas the regeneration cycle can reach to 7% of the dry mass
giving the net uptake of 11%. Thus, the improvement in the uptake
by the silica gels per cycle (adsorptiondesorption) in advanced
cycle is 36.4% as compared to the conventional cycle for the same
heat source and cooling water temperatures. It is noted that the
half-cycle time of the advanced cycle is set at 300 s whereas that of
the conventional cycle is about 600 s meaning that the advanced AD
cycle can achieve almost twice as much the number of cycles per

215

Table 6
The performance ratio (PR) of the advanced AD cycle.
Tcw
(C)

Hot water inlet temperature (C)

85

80

75

70

65

60

55

50

25
30
35

0.698
0.706
0.707

0.702
0.708
0.709

0.704
0.709
0.710

0.705
0.710
0.710

0.706
0.710
0.709

0.705
0.708
0.707

0.703
0.705
0.702

0.700
0.699
0.694

Fig. 6. Comparison of the advanced and conventional AD cycles on a PTC diagram.

day as a conventional cycle. Therefore, the quantum jump in the specic daily water production (SDWP) is expected in the advanced AD
cycle since the net uptake in advanced cycle improved by 36% in
half the cycle time required by a conventional cycle.
The transient water production rate of the advanced AD cycle in
terms of liters per minute is given in Fig. 7 where the equivalent specic daily water production (SDWP) of the cycle is found to be around
26 m 3 per tonne of silica gel per day. The water production rate by the
advanced cycle is almost three times higher than the yield from a conventional AD cycle. The quantum rise in the SDWP by the advanced
AD cycle is attributed to two factors, namely, (i) the improvement
in the net adsorption capacity of the silica gels, up to 40% of the dry
mass, owing to the pressurization effect during the adsorption process and (ii) a lowering of the effective condensation temperature
in the condenser due to lesser resistance in heat transfer, and this
tends to desorb more vapor out of the desorber during the desorption
process. It is noted that the advanced AD cycle produces only potable
water compromising the cooling power production in contrast with
the conventional AD cycle where simultaneous production of cooling
and potable water is realized from the evaporator and the condenser,
respectively [31]. With quantum jump in the water production and
the elimination of two high-powered pumps for chilled water circuit
in the evaporator and cooling water circuit in the condenser, the specic energy consumption of an advanced AD cycle is found to be
1.38 kWh m 3 while operating on waste heat from processes or
solar energy [32,33].
The performance ratio (PR) of the advanced AD cycle is presented
in Table 6. It is noted that the variation in the PR value for different
operating conditions is relatively insignicant, and the average PR
value is recorded around 0.7.
The performance of the evaporatorcondenser device implemented in the advanced AD cycle is also analyzed in terms of the overall
heat transfer coefcient. The overall heat transfer coefcient of the
evaporatorcondenser unit is evaluated using Modied Rohsenow
correlation for sub-atmospheric conditions for evaporation and Nusselt lm correlation for condensation. Thermal resistance imposed
by the stainless steel tubes is also accounted for. The overall heat
transfer coefcient (U) of the evaporatorcondenser device is

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

Fig. 8. Overall heat transfer coefcient of the evaporatorcondenser device.

216

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

Fig. 9. The predicted SDWPs of the advanced AD cycle at assorted hot water inlet
temperatures.

Fig. 12. Overall heat transfer coefcient of an advanced AD cycle at different cooling
water inlet temperatures.

Fig. 10. Overall heat transfer coefcient of an advanced AD cycle at different hot water
inlet temperatures.

Fig. 13. The optimal cycle time for SDWP of the advanced AD cycle.

Fig. 11. The predicted potable water production of the advanced AD cycle for different
cooling water inlet temperatures.

Fig. 14. Comparison on the water production rates by different AD cycles at normalized
cycle time.

shown in Fig. 8. The predicted data showed that the U value is higher
at the beginning of each cycle and gradually lower as the cycle time
advances. This is because the uptake and desorption amount by the
silica gels is higher at the beginning of the cycle operation resulting
rapid evaporation and condensation. Thus, the U value is higher at

that period. The uptake amount gradually diminishes as the silica gels
become saturated, and the desorption rate becomes slower as the
cycle operation progresses. However, during the switching period,
the U value drops to the value less than 500 W m 2 K 1. This is because there are no adsorption and desorption phenomena during

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

this period, and the resulted small value of U is due to the exchange of
heat between the thermal masses of the evaporator and the condenser. The cycle average overall heat transfer coefcient (UOverall) is
found to be about 2300 W m 2 K 1 which is quite a good value
across the vapor condensing in the condenser to the vapor leaving
the saline solution falling over the surface of evaporator tubes.
A parametric analysis on the advanced AD cycle has been conducted to study the performance of the cycle at various operating
conditions such as different cycle times, and different hot and cooling
water inlet temperatures to the adsorber beds.
Figs. 9 and 10 represent the specic daily water production
(SDWP) and overall heat transfer coefcient (U) of the advanced AD
cycle for assorted regeneration temperatures from 50 C to 85 C.
The results show that the water production rate of the advanced
cycle linearly varies with the hot water temperature. This is due to
the better regeneration process for higher hot water temperatures.
The results correspondingly exhibit that the overall heat transfer coefcient increases with the increase in the hot water temperature. It
is noted that the changes in UOverall values at lower hot water inlet
temperatures are relatively signicant as compared that at higher
hot water inlet temperatures. Again, the higher regeneration temperature plays a signicant role in AD cycles at which the adsorbent desorbs effectively and subsequently adsorbs larger amount of water
vapor improving the mass transfer trafc between the evaporator
adsorber and desorbercondenser. Thus, rapid condensation of
higher-temperature water vapor contributes to higher overall heat
transfer coefcient of the evaporatorcondenser device.
The effect of the cooling water temperature to the adsorber on the
performance of the advanced AD cycle is further investigated. The
temperature range between 25 C and 35 C is selected as this is a
practical cooling water temperature range readily available using a
conventional cooling tower. The effect of the cooling water temperature on the cycle is investigated at assorted hot water inlet temperatures between 50 C and 85 C. The performance of the cycle in terms
of SDWP is presented in Fig. 11 where the results indicate that the
cycle performs more efciently at lower cooling water temperatures
giving higher SDWP. As the cooling water temperature increases,
the SDWP of the cycle becomes lower. This phenomenon can be attributed to the isotherm behavior of the silica gelwater pair where
the lower-temperature adsorption environment promotes higher uptake capacity by the adsorbent materials.
The effect of cooling water inlet temperature on the overall heat
transfer of the evaporatorcondenser device is shown in Fig. 12
where it highlights signicant depreciation in UOverall at lower hot
water inlet temperatures.
The effect of the operation cycle time on the specic daily water
production (SDWP) of the cycle at a xed hot water temperature
(85 C) is presented in Fig. 13. It is noted that the optimal half-cycle
time for the advanced AD cycle is 300 s, and this is shorter by 50%
when compared to the conventional AD cycle at the same heat source
temperature [34]. The shorter cycle time leads to higher water production yield with increasing numbers of operating cycles per day.
Comparison on the water production rates by different adsorption
cycles at normalized cycle time and same operating conditions
(Thot = 85 C and Tcw = 30 C) is given in Fig. 14. A conventional AD
cycle and an AD cycle with heat recovery between condenser and evaporator using an evaporatorcondenser heat recovery circuit are selected
for the comparison [3537]. It is noted that experimental data for the
aforementioned cycles are used here. The results show that the advanced AD cycle can produce potable water up to three-folds of the conventional cycle while it produces twice that of the AD cycle with
evaporatorcondenser heat recovery circuit for the same adsorbent inventory. Another signicant advantage of the advanced cycle is that it
can be operational at hot water inlet temperatures as low as 50 C
while a conventional cycle is unable to do so at such low temperatures.
Moreover, this kind of low-grade regeneration temperature is readily

217

available from the solar thermal sources or waste heat from industrial
processes. The specic daily water production (SDWP) at 50 C hot
water inlet temperature is found to be about 8.1 m 3 day 1, and it is
comparable with that of the conventional cycle even at this low heat
source temperature.
5. Conclusions
We have successfully modeled and predicted the performance of
an advanced adsorption desalination cycle with condenserevaporator heat recovery scheme. The modeling techniques incorporated realistic isotherms and kinetics, heat and mass transfer resistances in
the solidvapor uptake, the evaporative boiling and condensation
processes. The cycle performances are examined for assorted heat
source and cooling water temperatures.
For the same adsorbent inventory in the cycle, the advanced cycle
shows a higher water vapor uptake over the conventional cycle and
such improvements are clearly observed when the states are plotted
on a PTC state diagram. Translated into water production capacity,
the specic water production yield improves remarkably: varying
from 8.1 m 3 to 26 m 3 at the corresponding heat source temperatures
of 50 C to 85 C, respectively. Owing to the integrated design, the
overall heat transfer coefcient of the integrated condenser and evaporator is found to be higher, typically around 2300 W m 2 K 1. Using
only low temperature waste heat as thermal energy input, the specic
electricity consumption of the advanced cycle is about 1.38 kWh
m 3, and this is only twice that of the thermodynamic limit needed
for desalination of seawater.
References
[1] http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/background.shtml.
[2] www.2030waterresourcesgroup.com/water_full/.
[3] Jim S. Wallace, Peter J. Gregory, Water resources and their use in food production
systems, Aquat. Sci. 64 (2002) 363375.
[4] P. Pinstrup-Andersen, R. Pandya-Lorch, M.W. Rosegrant, The World Food Situation: Recent Developments, Emerging Issues, and Long-term Prospects, IFPRI,
Washington D.C., 1997
[5] V. Frenkel, Desalination methods, technology and economics, Desalination Conference Santa Barbara, CA, USA, 2004.
[6] http://webworld.unesco.org/water/ihp/db/shiklomanov/summary/html/summary.
html#5.%20Water.
[7] Semih Otles, Serkan Serkan Otles, Desalination techniques, Electron. J. Environ
Agric. Food. Chem. 4 (2004) 963969.
[8] Paul Alois, Global Water Crisis Overview, http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/
wbp/global-water-crisis/441#2007.
[9] GWI DesalData/IDA, 21st GWI/International Desalination Association Worldwide
Desalting Plant Inventory, Desalination in 2008, Global Market snapshot, 2008.
[10] Lisa Henthorne, The Current State of Desalination, http://www.idadesal.org/PDF/
the%20current%20state%20of%20desalination%20remarks%20nov%2009%20
by%20lisa%20henthorne.pdf.
[11] M.A. Darwish, N.M. Al-Najem, Energy consumption by multi-stage ash and reverse osmosis desalters, Appl. Therm. Eng. 20 (2000) 399416.
[12] Masahiro Murakami, Managing Water for Peace in the Middle East: Alternative
Strategies, United Nations Univ., 1995
[13] K.S. Spiegler, Y.M. El-Sayed, A Desalination Primer, Balaban Desalination Publications, Santa Maria Imbaro, Italy, 1994.
[14] O.K. Buros, The ABCs of Desalting, Second Ed, International Desalination Association, Topseld, Mass, 2000.
[15] James E. Miller, Review of Water Resources and Desalination Technologies,
http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/2003/030800.pdf2003.
[16] John MacHarg, Thomas F. Seacord, Bradley Sessions, ADC baseline tests reveal
trends in membrane performance, Desalin. Water Reuse 18 (2008) 3039.
[17] M. A1-Shammiri, M. A1-Dawas, Maximum recovery from seawater reverse osmosis plants in Kuwait, Desalination 110 (1997) 3748.
[18] Nikolay Voutchkov, Advances in seawater desalination technology, Water Conditioning Purif 49 (2007).
[19] Kim Choon Ng, Bidyut Baran Saha, Anutosh Chakraborty, Shigeru Koyama, Adsorption desalination quenches global thirst, Heat Transfer Eng. 29 (2008)
845848.
[20] X. Wang, K.C. Ng, Experimental investigation of an adsorption desalination plant
using low-temperature waste heat, Appl. Therm. Eng. 25 (2005) 27802789.
[21] Ng, K. C., Wang, X.L, Gao, L. Z., Chakraborty, A., Saha, B. B. Koyama, S., Apparatus
and method for desalination, WO Patent no. 121414A1, 2006.
[22] Kyaw Thu, Bidyut Baran Saha, Anutosh Chakraborty, Won Gee Chun, Ng Kim
Choon, Thermo-physical properties of silica gel for adsorption desalination cycles,
Appl. Therm. Eng., Special Issue for IMPRES (in press).

218

K. Thu et al. / Desalination 308 (2013) 209218

[23] Kim Choon Ng, Kyaw Thu, Bidyut Baran Saha, Anutosh Chakraborty, Study on a
waste heat-driven adsorption cooling cum desalination cycle, Int. J. Refrig. 35
(2012) 685693.
[24] H.T. El-Dessouky, H.M. Ettouney, Fundamentals of Salt Water Desalination,
Elsevier, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2002.
[25] A. Chakraborty, B.B. Saha, S. Koyama, K.C. Ng, Specic heat capacity of a single
component adsorbentadsorbate system, Appl. Phys. Lett. 90 (2007) 171902.
[26] Chi Tien, Adsorption calculation and modeling, ButterworhHeinemann series in
chemical engineering, Boston, 1994.
[27] B.B. Saha, T. Kashiwagi, Experimental investigation of an advanced adsorption refrigeration cycle, ASHRAE Trans. 103 (1997) 5058.
[28] Kim Choon Ng, Anutosh Chakraborty, Sai Maung Aye, Xiaolin Wang, New pool
boiling data for water with copper-foam metal at sub-atmospheric pressures: experiments and correlation, Appl. Therm. Eng. 26 (2006) 12861290.
[29] Kyaw Thu, K.C. Ng, B.B. Saha, A. Chakraborty, Overall of heat transfer analyses of a
heat-driven adsorption chiller at assorted regeneration temperatures, International Symposium on Next-generation Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Technology, Tokyo, Japan, 2010.
[30] K.C. Ng, H.T. Chua, C.Y. Chung, C.H. Loke, T. Kashiwagi, A. Akisawa, B.B. Saha, Experimental investigation of the silica gelwater adsorption isotherm characteristics, Appl. Therm. Eng. 21 (2001) 16311642.

[31] Bidyut Baran Saha, Kyaw Thu, Anutosh Chakraborty, Kim Choon Ng, Experimental
investigation on a waste heat driven advanced adsorption desalination and cooling cycle with internal heat recovery, Heat Powered Cycles, Berlin, Germany,
2009.
[32] K.C. Ng, K. Thu, B.B. Saha, A novel adsorption desalination method: a test programme for achieving the 1.5 kWh/m3 benchmark, International Water Week,
Singapore, 2008.
[33] Kyaw Thu, A. Chakraborty, B.B. Saha, Won Gee Chun, K.C. Ng, Life-cycle cost analysis of adsorption cycles for desalination, Desalin. Water Treat. (2010) 110.
[34] K. Thu, K.C. Ng, B.B. Saha, A. Chakraborty, S. Koyama, Operational strategy of adsorption desalination system, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 52 (2009) 18111816.
[35] Kyaw Thu, Bidyut Baran Saha, Anutosh Chakraborty, Won Gee Chun, Kim Choon
Ng, Study on an advanced adsorption desalination cycle with evaporatorcondenser heat recovery circuit, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 54 (2011) 4351.
[36] Kim Choon Ng, Kyaw Thu, Hideharu Yanagi, Anutosh Chakraborty, Bidyut B. Saha,
Performance analysis of a low temperature waste heat-driven adsorption desalination prototype plant, The 5th Asian Conference on Refrigeration and
Air-conditioning, Tokyo, JAPAN, 2010.
[37] K.C. Ng, K. Thu, A. Chakraborty, B.B. Saha, W.G. Chun, Solar-assisted dual-effect
adsorption cycle for the production of cooling effect and potable water, Int. J.
Low Carbon Technol. 4 (2009) 6167.