LAUSR

An integrated system of solar absorption cooling and membrane distillation (MD) water desalination sub-systems is investigated to supply chilled water for space air-conditioning and desalination to provide freshwater for a typical family house. The system is based on single-effect LiBr–$$\hbox {H}_{\mathrm {2}}\hbox {O}$$H2O absorption refrigeration cycle where rejected heat is used to heat feed water in the MD system. Two different arrangements of the system are discussed, configurations A and B. Configuration (A) utilizes cooling seawater for the cold side of MD unit, while configuration (B) shares the chilled water produced from the absorption system with partial cooling load requirements. Results show that maximum cooling effect is produced by configuration (A) followed by configuration (B) with 25, 50 and 75% bypass percentages that produce 26, 19.5, 9.8 and 2.5 kW cooling effect, respectively. Meanwhile, configuration (B) with 75% bypass percentage has a better performance in terms of water productivity such that it produces up to 133 $$\hbox {kg/m}^{\mathrm {2}}$$kg/m2-hr of desalinated water compared to 125, 118 and 110 for the same configuration (B) at different bypass ratios of 50, 25% and configuration (A), respectively.