This article was downloaded by: [Eindhoven Technical University]

On: 24 January 2015, At: 21:19

Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,
37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Heat Transfer Engineering

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uhte20

How Heat and Mass Recovery Strategies Impact the

Performance of Adsorption Desalination Plant: Theory
and Experiments
a

Xiaolin Wang , Kim Choon Ng , Anutosh Chakarborty & Bidyut Baran Saha
a

Mechanical Engineering Department , National University of Singapore , Singapore

Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences , Kyushu University , Fukuoka,

Japan
Published online: 05 Oct 2011.

To cite this article: Xiaolin Wang , Kim Choon Ng , Anutosh Chakarborty & Bidyut Baran Saha (2007) How Heat and Mass
Recovery Strategies Impact the Performance of Adsorption Desalination Plant: Theory and Experiments, Heat Transfer
Engineering, 28:2, 147-153, DOI: 10.1080/01457630601023625
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01457630601023625

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content) contained
in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the
Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and
are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and
should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for
any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever
or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of
the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic
reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any
form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://
www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Heat Transfer Engineering, 28(2):147153, 2007

C Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
Copyright 
ISSN: 0145-7632 print / 1521-0537 online
DOI: 10.1080/01457630601023625

Downloaded by [Eindhoven Technical University] at 21:19 24 January 2015

How Heat and Mass Recovery

Strategies Impact the Performance
of Adsorption Desalination Plant:
Theory and Experiments
XIAOLIN WANG, CHAKARBORTY ANUTOSH, and KIM CHOON NG
Mechanical Engineering Department, National University of Singapore, Singapore

BIDYUT BARAN SAHA

Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

A prototype adsorption desalination facility is experimentally studied, and the performance tests are conducted with and
without the heat and mass recovery procedures. The experiments show that practical and yet effective methods could yield a
significant boost to the specific daily water production and performance ratio of the desalination plant by 15.7% and 42.5%,
respectively.

INTRODUCTION
Adsorption desalination (AD) is a novel method of producing potable water, despite the adsorption cycle, for cooling applications found in chemical, power and co-generation plants.
Hitherto, there are several kinds of commercial-scale desalination plants in many water scarce countries, such as the multistage flash (MSF) [1] type; the multi-effect desalination [2] type;
the membrane-based reverse osmosis (RO) [3] plants; the hybrid
plants, which combine the RO and MSF processes [4, 5]; and
electrodialysis (ED) or electrodialysis reversal (EDR) [6]. All
of the mentioned desalination methods are found to be either
highly energy-intensive to maintain the processes of desalination or prone to serious erosion and fouling problems in the evaporating units operating at elevated evaporating temperatures [7].
The AD cycle is proposed to mitigate the shortcomings of
the conventional desalination methods [811]. The advantages
of the AD cycle are that
1. it employs waste heat at low temperatures for the cycle, temperatures of 85 C or lower;
2. the vaporization of saline or brackish water in the evaporator
is kept at a low temperature, typically between 2025 C, to
mitigate problems of corrosion and fouling; and
Address correspondence to Dr. K. C. Ng, Mechanical Engineering Department, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore
119260. E-mail: mpengkc@nus.edu.sg

3. the complete elimination of any bio-contamination by desorption at 65 C or more where any unwanted aerosolentrained microbes or cells from the evaporator would be
killed.
The reduced corrosion and fouling rates in the evaporator
imply a low maintenance cost for the AD plants as compared
with the conventional plants. Other than the evaporator, which is
usually made of stainless steel, the other components of the AD
plant use a comparatively inexpensive carbon steel. In addition,
the AD plants employ low-temperature waste heat from industries that otherwise would have been purged into the ambient,
not only saving the primary energy resource but also reducing
global warming.
Wang and Ng [11] have recently reported the performance of
a four-bed silica gel-water adsorption desalination plant, where
both the specific daily water production (SDWP) and the plant
performance ratio (PR) are yet to be optimized. The PR is defined here as the ratio of the equivalent latent heat associated with
the potable water production to the energy input to the adsorption cycle. Being a batch-operated cycle, the effects of thermal
mass from the reactor beds and the mixing of the residual heat
of the coolant remaining in the cycle during switching could be
substantial in relation to the total heat input per cycle. One of
the pioneering works in heat and mass recovery procedures that
was applied to adsorption cycle employed to provide cooling

147

Downloaded by [Eindhoven Technical University] at 21:19 24 January 2015

148

X. WANG ET AL.

is the HIJC USA, Inc. [12], where both the water circulation
and mass recovery schemes were applied to the beds during the
switching interval. It reported some improvement to the chiller
cooling capacity. More recently, Wang [13] analyzed in some
detail the energy recovery principle of the adsorption cycle, and
Liu et al. [14] attempted to explain the functional aspects of
heat and mass recovery schemes for chillers by considering an
open-loop design for the adsorption cycle, as well as the use of
an external heat source and cooling tower. They concluded that
for the chiller performance to improve, an independent fluid recirculation loop is necessary to augment the heat recovery. Such
a process could be operated either in a continuous manner or
only during the switching period [15]. Such an active heat recovery scheme works best with a high-temperature heat source,
which seems incompatible with the novel aim of utilizing lowtemperature waste heat. On the other hand, Ng et al. [16, 17]
employed only passive heat and mass recovery schemes on a
four-bed adsorption plant that was operated as a water desalination plant. Although many possible heat and mass combinations
or schemes could be applied to the adsorption cycle, the authors
have demonstrated two methods that require minimal changes
to the plant hardware and yet significantly improve the system
performance of the adsorption desalination plant.
EXPERIMENTS
The schematic and prototype adsorption desalination plant is
shown in Figures 1 and 2, comprising the four beds, condenser,
and evaporator. For a two-bed mode, each pair of beds operates in
tandem, either concomitantly as the adsorber or desorber. During
the desorption process, a low-temperature heat source is supplied

to the desorber bed, where the water vapor from the silica gel
is expelled and the vapor is allowed to condense on the tubes
of the condenser. The heat rejected by the condenser is cooled
by circulating water from the cooling tower, and the condensate
produced within the condenser is collected as the potable water.
At the same time, the designated adsorber is in heat and mass
communications with the evaporator through the controlled vapor valve, thus causing boiling to occur within the evaporator.
As adsorption is an exothermic process, external cooling water
from the cooling tower is circulated to the designated adsorber,
enhancing the vapor uptake to the adsorbent. Details of the plant
switching and cycle operations have been previously described
in literature [17] and thus will not be elaborated here. It is noted
that the equipment found below the platform is the purpose-built
rating facility, which enables constant supply conditions for the
coolant or heat source temperatures, such as chilled water and
cooling and hot water temperatures, to within an accuracy of
0.3 C.
The saline or brackish water is first pre-treated (e.g., filtering
and de-aeration) and feeds to the evaporator, while purging from
the evaporator is conducted intermittently for salt concentration
control. Potable water is produced in the adsorption cycle in
two steps. First, vapor is evaporated by the thermal load from
the circulating evaporator-water loop, and the spray evaporation
is employed as compared to conventional pool boiling. Vapor uptake or adsorption is maintained by the unsaturated properties of
adsorbent in the designated water-cooled adsorber. Secondly, vapor is purged out from the designated hot-water driven desorber
and condensed in the condenser to produce the pure water. The
condensate is collected in a collection tank and intermittently
pumped out to the ambient.

Figure 1 A schematic of a two-bed adsorption desalination plant.

heat transfer engineering

vol. 28 no. 2 2007

Downloaded by [Eindhoven Technical University] at 21:19 24 January 2015

X. WANG ET AL.

149

Figure 2 A pictorial view of a two-bed adsorption desalination plant.

The test facility is extensively instrumented, and some of

the measurement points are as marked in Figure 1. In spite of
the batch operation of the beds, the production of water in the
evaporator is continuous but fluctuating and is measured using
a flow meter. All temperature measurements employ the 5 ktype thermistors with a low time-constant sensor, typically 3s
(0.2 C, YSI). The small time constant enables these sensors
to track accurately the transient swings during the switching and
operation periods, avoiding any unnecessary cumulative error.
Electromagnetic flow transmitters for the flow rate measurements (0.5% of reading, Krohne) are used, and the absolute
pressure sensors with an accuracy of 3.5% of the reading are
also employed. The measurements of the condensate water and
the performance ratio have uncertainties of the order of 2.5%
and 3.5%, respectively.
HEAT AND MASS RECOVERY SCHEMES
Heat and mass recovery schemes are deemed necessary in
an adsorption cycle because the cycle operates in a cyclic manner, whereas a designated reactor bed is initially heated for the
desorption process and cooled for the adsorption process in the
following half-cycle. As the beds comprise components such as
the silica gel and the finned-tube heat exchanger, the residual
thermal energy associated with a heating or cooling change over
or transient could be substantial in comparison to the amount
of energy input over a half-cycle. Although one could recover
the transient residual heat in many ways [1216], only the cost
and performance effectiveness methods, which require minimal
hardware alteration, are investigated.
heat transfer engineering

The adsorption cycle is commonly depicted on a P-T-q or

Duhring diagram where the sloping lines are the lines of constant vapor uptake or isostere, as shown in Figure 3. The isobars,
shown by lines 12 and 34, are the adsorption and desorption
processes in a cycle, respectively, while the isosteres, represented by 23 and 41, refer to the switching intervals during
pre-cooling and pre-heating, respectively. State points 2 and 4
are the lowest and the highest temperatures achieved by the adsorbent in the cycle. Being time independent, the P-T-q diagram
is a simple state diagram for discussing energy transfer where
the temperature abscissa could provide an indicator as to how realistically an energy recovery procedure could be implemented.
One of the simplest heat recovery procedures that could be
implemented in an AD plant is the management of the thermal
fronts of coolant flow within the beds during the pre-heating and
pre-cooling switching intervals. Owing to the finite volume of
coolant being retained in the flow passages of a bed, the simultaneous closure or opening of the inlet and outlet valves of a bed
would result in the unwarranted flow of residual water of the bed
into an incorrect return path or circuits. By introducing a simple
time delay for the activation of the respective outlet valves of
the beds, the proper segments of hot and cold coolants could
be directed without thermal degeneration until the arrival of the
designated thermal fronts, at which time the valves are activated
to switch the flows into the respective circuits. Such heat recovery management requires no hardware alteration in the circuits
except a timed delay to the operation of outlet valves, but the consequences on the performance of AD plants are two-fold. First,
the heat input to the plant is reduced as the residual hot/cold water
in the previously designated desorber/adsorber beds (Qresidual ) is
correctly returned and, hence, the plant performance ratio (PR)
vol. 28 no. 2 2007

Downloaded by [Eindhoven Technical University] at 21:19 24 January 2015

150

X. WANG ET AL.

Figure 3 Duhring diagram of the adsorption cycle.

improves. Second, the proper reverting of the residual hot water

of the bed during switching, simply denoted here as valve-delay
(VD), reduces the need for a larger cooling tower for heat rejection. The improvement in the plant performance ratio (PR)
could be seen from the smaller denominator contribution due to
the better management of flow, i.e.,

hfg 0 mevap dt
PRwith VD = 
(1)
0 (Qin Qresidual ) dt
where is the half-cycle time and Qresidual refers to the energy
saved in the heat source circuit from a timed delay of the outlet
valves.
The second heat and mass recovery procedure tested in the
prototype AD plant is called the gas pressure equalization (PE),
where the pressures of the beds are equalized during a part of the
switching interval. PE is achieved by opening an equalization
valve linking a pair of the adsorption and desorption beds of
different pressure levels. Using the P-T or Duhring diagram, as
shown in Figure 3, the PE enables the Pdesorber or P4 of the desorber and Padsorber or P2 of the adsorber to be equalized almost
instantaneously to an intermediate pressure, Pequalized , permitting
an instant flow of vapor from the beds. Within the desorber, a
reduction of the bed pressure from P4 to P4A leads to a reduction of the isosteres of adsorbent from q4 to q4A . On the other
hand, the previously designated adsorber experiences a pressurization of P2 to P2A , leading to an increase in the isostere
from q2 to q2A and aided by a rush of vapor mass via the equalization valve. Hence, there is a corresponding increase in the
heat input associated to change of state points 3 to 3 , i.e.,
Q3 3 = h ADS Ms,i (q2A q2 ), while the increase in cooling
capacity can be estimated by Qevap,PE = h fg Ms,i [(q4 q4A )].
The combined schemes on the operation of the AD plant would
heat transfer engineering

certainly boost the specific water yield, but in the increase in

plant PR, it is not obvious where the latter definition has contributions from positive and negative quantities in the denominator,
i.e.,

hfg 0 (mevap + mevap,PE ) dt
(2)
PRwith VD+PE = 

0 (Qin Qresidual + Q3 3 ) dt
It is noted that the sensible energy change due to pressure
equalization is deemed small by comparison and ignored in the
PR definition. The increase in SDWP due to pressure equalization can be attributed to the recovery of mass or vapor from the
desorber to the adsorber beds during switching.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 1 summarizes the typical test conditions employed for
the adsorption desalination cycle. As there are no available standards for the testing of the adsorption desalination cycle, the
rating conditions were set arbitrary at Thot = 85 C, Tcond =
in
29.4 C, and Tevap
= 12.2 C, the conditions similar to those used
Table 1 Rating conditions for an adsorption desalination plant with two-bed
operation
Half cycle time (s)
Switching time (s)
Hot water inlet temperature ( C)
Cooling water inlet temperature ( C)
Evaporator water inlet temperature ( C)
Hot water flow rate (L/min)
Cooling water to bed flow rate (L/min)
Cooling water to condenser flow rate (L/min)
Chilled water flow rate (L/min)

vol. 28 no. 2 2007

180720
40
85
29.4
12.2
48
38
125
46

Downloaded by [Eindhoven Technical University] at 21:19 24 January 2015

X. WANG ET AL.

Figure 4 Performance of the basic two-bed adsorption desalination plant at

assorted cycle time.

for chiller testing. In addition to the mentioned rating conditions,

the cycle and switching time intervals are equally important in
the operation of the AD plant. Figure 4 presents the adsorption desalination performance, conducted under a two-bed mode
with a changing cycle time on the abscissa. It is observed that the
specific daily water production (SDWP) of the AD plant peaks
gradually with the cycle time changing from 400s to 600s. The
optimal SDWP is found to be around 4 kg of water/kg silica gel,
and the corresponding maximum PR is 0.32. Increasing the cycle time leads to the asymptotic increase in the PR but results in a
slight reduction in the SDWP. This is attributed mainly to the saturation phenomenon of the adsorbent at the rating temperatures.
On the other hand, a shorter cycle time has the negative effect of
not fully utilizing the adsorption potential of silica gel, leading
to a large reduction in both the SDWP and PR of the AD cycle.
The efficacy of the heat recovery scheme, demonstrated during the switching interval by the implementation of a valve closure delayed (VD), is appropriately depicted in Figure 5. Using

Figure 5 Temperature profile of the cooling and heat source at the system
inlet and outlet with and without heat recovery scheme. Symbols:
Hot
water inlet,
Hot water outlet with heat recovery scheme,
Hot water
outlet without heat recovery scheme,
Cooling water inlet,
Cooling
Cooling water outlet without heat
water outlet with heat recovery scheme,
recovery scheme.

heat transfer engineering

Figure 6
cycle.

151

Effects of the heat recovery scheme only on a two-bed adsorption

temperature-time traces from the sensors that are placed in the

supply and return pipes of both the hot and cold circuits, the role
of valve timing delay in energy savings can be estimated by the
shaded area enclosed by superimposing two temperature traces:
Path A is obtained before the implementation of VD, Path B
is derived with VD applied, and the shaded area between them is
a measure of the amount of energy saved (i.e., Qresidual ). Typically, a delay time spanning from 40s to 70s has been investigated and the optimal delay is close to 70s for a two-bed
mode. Figure 6 shows the PR at different cycle time with or
without the heat recovery scheme. The percentage improvement in the PR increases by as much as 30% when the cycle
time is short; however, at a long cycle time, a lesser improvement in PR is observed, decreasing to about 16%. At a long
cycle time of 600s and in two-bed mode, the AD plant PR
with VD is 0.41, as compared with a PR of only 0.34 without time delay. Thus, the simple management of the residual
heat in the beds during switching improves the PR, and this
could be instituted simply via software modification in the AD
plant, as the heat recovery scheme has insignificant effect on the
SDWP.
The effectiveness of mass recovery by pressure equalization
(PE) in boosting AD plant performance is shown by the continuous lines of Figure 7, where the intercept axis indicates the specific water production (SDWP) and the abscissa is the PE period
within the switching interval. At a cycle time of 300s, the daily
SDWP increases from 3.5 kg of water/kg silica gel to 4.05 kg of
water/kg silica, while the PR increases marginally from 0.235
to 0.298. Over the PE intervals investigated, the maximum percentage increase of SDWP and PR are 15.7% and 26.8%, respectively. It is noted that when the gas pressure equalization
time interval is short, the adsorption and desorption potentials
within the beds are not fully utilized, and both the SDWP and
PR would plummet. Conversely, a long PE time interval interferes with the normal cycle operation and decreases the SDWP.
Hence, there is an intermediate time interval of about 30s where
the PE between the beds would yield an optimal SDWP. The
dashed-line in Figure 7 shows the combined contributions from
the two schemes that were applied onto the AD cycle, where the
vol. 28 no. 2 2007

152

X. WANG ET AL.

Downloaded by [Eindhoven Technical University] at 21:19 24 January 2015

CONCLUSION

Figure 7 Effects of the energy recovery schemes on a two-bed adsorption

cycle at assorted pressure equalization (PE) time but fixed half-cycle time of
300s. Points A and C represent the PR and SDWP, which were obtained without
heat recovery scheme. The solid line shows the effects of the mass recovery
only with the increase of PE time intervals. Point B represents the effect of heat
recovery scheme (VD) on the performance ratio, and the dotted line shows the
combined effects of both the heat & mass recovery (VD + PE) with the increase
of PE time intervals.

The performance of a prototype adsorption desalination plant

has been tested successfully using a purpose built rating facility.
Under the basic two-bed mode, the optimal specific daily water
production (SDWP) is measured to be about 4 kg of water/kg
silica gel, where the corresponding PR is about 0.32. With the
implementation of the management of the residual heat in the
beds using valve closure delay (VD) and the pressure equalization (PE) between the adsorber and desorber beds, the percentage
improvements in SDWP and PR are 15.7% and 42.5%, respectively. As cooling is no longer the objective for an AD plant,
the evaporator inlet temperature could be raised, resulting in a
two-fold increase in the plant SDWP and PR.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Jonathan M. Capel, C. H. Lim Peter, and Lim Yee Sern for gathering part of the experimental data.
The authors also gratefully acknowledge the financial support
of an A*STAR SERC grant.
NOMENCLATURE

cycle time is held constant at 300s but the PE intervals change.

It is observed that the PR of AD plant improves from 0.24 of the
basic AD cycle to 0.34, an increase of 42.5% with the mentioned
schemes.
As the temperature at the inlet to the evaporator increases,
the SDWP performance of an adsorption desalination plant increases accordingly. As opposed to cooling, the chilled water
temperature requirement of 14 C or lower can now be dispensed
within the adsorption desalination plant, where the evaporator
temperature can be raised to an optimal level. The regenerative
feature is part of the claims cited in [13]. Table 2 summarizes the
key performance results (but with constant cycle and PE times
of 480s and 30s, respectively) at four evaporator-inlet temperain
tures, namely Tevap
= 12.2 C, 15 C, 20 C, and 25 C. They show
significant improvements to both SDWP and PR.

hADS
hfg
M
P
PR
q
Q
SDWP
t
T

Greek Symbol

Table 2 The effect of raising water temperature at inlet to the evaporator for
the basic AD cycle, as well as the comparisons with cycles with pressure
equalization (PE) and valve-closure delay (VD) of an AD plant

in
Tevap

SDWP (m3 /tonne or kg of

water/kg of silica gel per
day) 0.14
Performance ratio (PR)
0.011

Modified cycle with heat and mass

Basic cycle
recovery (VD + PE) with
PE = 0s and
PE = 30s, Thalfcycle = 480s
Tcycle = 480s
12.2 C 15 C 20 C
25 C
12.2 C
3.95

4.32

5.09 6.30

7.60

0.315

0.429 0.455 0.567

0.599

Note: All other parameters of AD plant are as per Table 1.

heat transfer engineering

heat of adsorption, kJ/kg of adsorbent

latent heat of evaporation, kJ/kg of water
mass of adsorbent or coolant, kg
pressure, Pa
performance ratio
vapor uptake to adsorbent
heat transfer rate, W
specific daily water production, kg of water/kg of
adsorbent or m3 of water per ton of adsorbent
time, s
temperature, C or K

half-cycle interval, s

Subscripts
ads
ads start
ads end
c, cond
cold
des
des end
des start
evap, e
hot

adsorption
start of the adsorption process
end of the adsorption process
condenser
cold coolant stream
desorption
end of the desorption process
start of the desorption process
evaporator
heat source stream

vol. 28 no. 2 2007

X. WANG ET AL.

i
in
in-sw
max
min
out-sw
PE
residual
s

bed numbering of a multi-bed system

heat input
heat input during switching period
maximum
minimum
heat removed during switching period
pressure equalization time
residual heat capacity of coolant in bed
silica gel

153

[15] Amar, N. B., Sun, L. M., and Meunier, F., Numerical Analysis of
Adsorptive Temperature Wave Regenerative Heat Pump, Applied
Thermal Engineering, vol. 16, no. 5, pp. 405418, 1996.
[16] Ng, K. C., Gordon, J. M., Chua, H. T., and Anutosh, C., ElectroAdsorption Chiller: A Miniaturized Cooling Cycle with Applications from Microelectronics to Conventional Air-Conditioning,
USPO no. 6,434,955, August 2002.
[17] Ng, K. C., Chua, H. T., Wang, X. L., Kashiwagi, T., and Saha, B. B.,
Prototype Testing of a Novel Four-Bed Regenerative Silica GelWater Adsorption Chiller, Proceedings of International Congress
on Refrigeration, Washington D.C., USA, 2003.

Downloaded by [Eindhoven Technical University] at 21:19 24 January 2015

REFERENCES
[1] Al-Wazzan, Y., and Al-Modaf, F., Seawater Desalination
in Kuwait Using Multistage Flash Evaporation TechnologyHistorical Overview, Desalination, vol. 134, pp. 257267,
2001.
[2] Al-Shammiri, M., and Safar, M., Multi-Effect Distillation Plants:
State of the Art, Desalination, vol. 126, pp. 4559, 1999.
[3] Amjad, Z., Reverse Osmosis: Membrane Technology, Water
Chemistry, and Industrial Applications, Chapman & Hall, International Thomson Publishing, New York, 1993.
[4] Awerbuch, L., May, S., Soo-Hoo, R., and Van Dermast, V.,
Hybrid Desalting Systems, Desalination, vol. 76, pp. 189197,
1989.
[5] EI-Sayed, E., Ebrahim, S., Ai-Saffa, A., and Abdeljawad, M., Pilot Study of MSF-RO Hybrid Systems, Desalination, vol. 120,
pp. 121128, 1998.
[6] Hummel, R. L., Solar Distillation with Economies of Scale, Innovation and Optimization, Desalination, vol. 134, pp. 159171,
2001.
[7] Ehrenman, G., From Sea to Sink, Mechanical Engineering,
vol. 126, no. 10, pp. 3843, 2004.
[8] Broughton, D. B., Continuous Desalination Process, USPO
4,447,329, May 8, 1984.
[9] Zejli, D., Benchrifa, R., Bennouna, A., and Bouhelal, O. K., A
Solar Adsorption Desalination Device: First Simulation Results,
Desalination, vol. 168, pp. 127135, 2004.
[10] Al-Kharabsheh, S., and Goswami, D. Y., Theoretical Analysis of a
Water Desalination System Using Low-Grade Solar Heat, Journal
of Solar Energy Engineering, Transactions of the ASME, vol. 126,
no. 2, pp. 774780, 2004.
[11] Wang, X. L., and Ng, K. C., Experimental Investigation of an
Adsorption Desalination Plant Using Low-Temperature Waste
Heat, Applied Thermal Engineering, vol. 25, pp. 27802789,
2005.
[12] Waste Heat Adsorption ChillerFunction, HIJC USA, Inc.,
P.O. Box 820307, Houston, Texas 77282-0307, USA. Available
at:
http://www.adsorptionchiller.bigstep.com/homepage.html.
Accessed October 2004.
[13] Wang, R. Z., Performance Improvement of Adsorption Cooling
by Heat and Mass Recovery Operation, International Journal of
Refrigeration, vol. 24, no. 7, pp. 602611, 2001.
[14] Liu, Y. L., Wang, R. Z., and Xia, Z. Z., Experimental Performance
of a Silica Gel-Water Adsorption Chiller, Applied Thermal Engineering, vol. 25, pp. 359375, 2005.

heat transfer engineering

Xialin Wang obtained his B. Eng. and Ph.D. from

Xian Jiaotong University in P.R. China in 1994 and
1999, respectively. He is currently working in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering of the National University of Singapore. His areas of research
are cooling engineering, chiller testing and modeling,
electro-adsorption chiller, and renewable energy.

Chakraborty Anutosh obtained the B.Sc.Eng from

Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in 1997 and M.Eng from the National University of Singapore in 2001. He worked one year at
the Power Development Board in Bangladesh. He is
currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Mechanical Engineering Department in the National University of
Singapore. His areas of research are solid-state microcooling devices, electro-adsorption chiller, and adsorption thermodynamics.
Kim Choon Ng obtained his BSc. (Hons.) and Ph.D.
from Strathclyde University in Glasgow, UK, in 1975
and 1980, respectively. He worked briefly at the Babcock Power Ltd. in Renfrew prior to joining the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the National
University of Singapore in 1981, and he is now a
tenured professor. His areas of research are two-phase
flow, chiller testing and modeling, electro-adsorption
chiller, and renewable energy. To date, he has written more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, four
patents, and co-authored a book, Cool Thermodynamics, printed by CISP (UK).
He is a member of the IMechE (UK) and the Institution of Engineer Singapore,
a Chartered Engineer (UK) and a registered professional engineer (S) and an
associate editor of Heat Transfer Engineering.
Bidyut Baran Saha obtained his B.Sc. (Hons.) and
MEng. degree from Dhaka University in Bangladesh
in 1987 and 1990, respectively. He received his Ph.D.
in 1997 from Tokyo University of Agriculture and
Technology, Japan. He is currently working as an associate professor at the Division of Advanced Device
Materials, Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University, Japan. His main research
interests are thermally powered sorption systems, heat
and mass transfer analysis, and energy efficiency assessment. He has published more than 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals and
proceedings.

vol. 28 no. 2 2007