Adsorption desalination—Principles, process design, and its hybrids for future sustainable desalination

Abstract

The energy, water, and environment nexus is a crucial factor when considering the future development of desalination plants or industry in water-stressed economies. The new generation of desalination processes or plants has to meet the stringent environment discharge requirements and yet the industry remains highly energy efficient and sustainable when producing good potable water. Water sources, either brackish or seawater, have become more contaminated as feed while the demand for desalination capacities increases around the world. One immediate solution for energy efficiency improvement comes from the hybridization of the proven desalination processes to the newer processes of desalination: For example, the integration of the available heat-driven to adsorption desalination (AD) cycles where significant thermodynamic synergy can be attained when cycles are combined. For these hybrid cycles, a quantum improvement in energy efficiency as well as an increase in water production can be expected. The advent of MED with AD cycles, or simply called the MED-AD cycles, is one such example where seawater desalination can be pursued and operated in cogeneration with the electricity production plants: The hybrid desalination cycles utilize only the low exergy bled-stream at low temperatures, complemented with waste exhaust or renewable solar thermal heat at temperatures between 60°C and 80°C. In this chapter, the authors have reported their pioneered research on aspects of AD and related hybrid MED-AD cycles, both at theoretical models and experimental pilots. Using the cogeneration of electricity and desalination concepts, the authors examine the cost apportionment of fuel cost by the quality or exergy of the working steam for such cogeneration configurations.