Assessment of an absorption heat pump coupled to a multi-effect distillation unit within AQUASOL project

An absorption heat pump coupled to a multi-effect distillation unit is able to recover part of the thermal energy rejected in the distillation process, thus increasing its performance ratio. At the beginning of the nineties, a pilot plant installed at the Plataforma Solar de Almería (CIEMAT, Spain) showed a consumption of 108 kJ/kg of distilled water at 180 °C, thus resulting in a performance ratio of 21.3 while that of the distillation unit was about 10. A new precommercial prototype of double effect absorption heat pump has been designed and implemented within the framework of AQUASOL European Project that is being carried out since 2002. This is an ambitious research and demonstration project which complements all previous research activities of the Plataforma Solar de Almería related to solar multi-effect distillation. The research phase of the project has been successfully concluded and the test facility has been erected.