Improvement of the performance of an absorption heat transformer through a single effect process to obtain freshwater

The thermodynamic cycles have a huge potential to increase the usage of energetic efficiency. A lot works about the Absorption Heat Transformers have been studied worldwide, since these can be coupled at different processes with residual and/or renewable energies from 60 to 80 °C. This paper shows new Configurations for an Absorption Heat Transformer and a water distillation system in order to increase its performance. The evaporation process used is a single effect for seawater. The sensible heat preheats the working solution from the generator, refrigerant from the evaporator or condenser, while the latent heat is used to preheat the seawater inlet. The theoretical analysis is done with a thermodynamic model, which was validated with data reported in the literature. Different scenarios have been analyzed in order to determinate the best optimal configuration under several operating parameters. Based on the results, the best behavior is searched when the sensible heat is applied between the condenser and the evaporator, since it is possible to increase the thermal performance up to 7.95% with respect to basic AHT and 16.38% when the AHT uses a SHX. The Specific Recuperation Heat and the Specific Useful Heat are recommended to know how much heat can be recovered per each 1 kg/s of distilled water.