Performance simulation of solar-driven absorption heat pump-membrane distillation system for combined desalination brine concentration with feed recirculation and cooling applications

Dereje S. Ayou and Alberto Coronas

Energy, 2024, vol. 312, issue C

Abstract: Desalination is the primary choice for securing freshwater provision in water-stressed regions and reduces the gap between rising demand and dwindling natural freshwater resources. However, global desalination plants are dominated by fossil fuel-driven desalination technologies with a 40–50 % recovery ratio. Hence, it is critical to decarbonize desalination and address brine effluent ecological concerns. In this paper, a solar-powered absorption heat pump (AHP)-membrane distillation (MD) system concept was proposed and analysed for small-scale RO plant brine reject management and space cooling applications. The MD subsystem is based on commercial MD modules with batch feed recirculation to reach saturation (from 70 to 260 g/kg salinity). The MD system's heating and cooling consumptions are supplied by the AHP (6.54 MWh and 13.47 MWh, respectively, for a complete batch cycle). The AHP is designed to supply hot water at 85 °C with 701.63 kW heating capacity and co-produced chilled water at 16 °C with a cooling capacity of 857.86 kW, about 67 % is utilized to cool down the brine reject to feed temperature. The thermal and exergy COPs were 1.273 and 0.40 at a driving heat of 135 °C. The solar-powered AHP-MD system is useful for sustainable desalination deployment besides space cooling applications.

Keywords: Absorption heat pump; Membrane distillation; Brine concentration; Feed recirculation; Space cooling; Solar thermal (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544224033826
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:312:y:2024:i:c:s0360544224033826

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.133604

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().