Using latent heat from a water purification system to improve the performance of an absorption heat transformer

Absorption heat transformer for water purification (AHTWPs) are an option for utilizing energy from industrial or natural sources. Previous studies have demonstrated the feasibility of recycling the heat produced by the distillation of impure water, increasing the coefficient of performance (COP) values and reducing the energy requirements in the AHTWP. The present work presents a heat recovery proposal consisting in combining two cases: with source temperature increase (Case I) and without source temperature increase (Case II). The new configuration allows the fractionation of the available amount of heat ( 𝜂QAB) between the two heat recovery cases. A simulation was carried out for different absorber operating conditions, using H2O-LiBr as the working mixture at different concentrations. The results show that it is possible to increase the initial COP values up to 74%.