High efficiency H2O/LiBr double effect absorption cycles with multi-heat sources for tri-generation application

The objective of this study is to develop a high-efficiency double effect absorption cycle using multi-heat sources for tri-generation (trigen) application. The trigen system produces electricity, heating and cooling loads at the same time. The double-effect absorption refrigeration system consists of two generators, condensers, solution heat exchangers, expansion valves, an absorber and an evaporator. The cycle simulation is carried out for the H2O/LiBr double effect absorption cycle with multi-heat sources for parallel, serial, reverse, revised serial and revised reverse flow patterns. The absorption refrigeration system uses the high temperature steam and hot water as the multi-heat sources. A new high-efficiency cycle is selected depending on the arrangements of additional heat exchangers. This study recommends HX 2-2 cycle with two additional heat exchangers (SDHHX and DHX) as the best candidate for trigen application. It is concluded that THotwater has much more significant effect on the COP and QE than Tsteam in the HX 2-2 cycle. It is also found that the most important UA to affect the COP is UALG while that to affect QE is UAA.