Energy Evaluation of the Use of an Absorption Heat Pump in Water Distillation Process

Abstract

It is impossible to transform the whole energy into useful work. It is impossible to increase the processes of cultivation of foods without water. It is impossible to separate all ions and minerals from water. Most of the real processes are thermodynamically irreversible. Calculations may indicate the fraction of efficiency of a thermal process. All the above mentioned facts have led to some proposals of cycles that exchange energy in order to produce a useful effect for the society. The key sustainable related parts are: to obtain water free of minerals or ions by distillation process. In this chapter, thermodynamic cycles will be explained for distillation using thermodynamic cycles of thermal machines called absorption heat pumps (AHPs). Distillation process offers to the AHPs an opportunity to diminish the consumptions of fossil fuels. The AHPs are able to work with 2% of mechanical energy to carry out a sustainable distillation process. Most of the energy of an absorption heat pump operation is thermal energy. The operation of the AHPs are defined with the coefficient of performance (COP); the variations of this parameter are shown as function of the different scenarios to obtain sustainable distilled water.