Recent advances in heat pump-coupled desalination systems: A systematic review

A comprehensive review about improving the saline desalination systems performance by coupling heat pumps. Three main desalination methods; namely: evaporation-based desalination, humidification-dehumidification-based desalination, and membrane-based desalination, are associated with heat pumps. Single and multi-effect evaporation desalinations are equipped with heat pumps. Furthermore, vapor compression heat pumps are combined with both open and close air humidification-dehumidification units. Moreover, air or water-heated humidification-dehumidification units are capable to be combined with single and double-effect absorption heat pumps. Furthermore, membrane-based desalination systems are operated using heat pumps. For evaporation-based desalination, single and multi-effect evaporation are equipped with heat pumps, compression or absorption type, in order to recover the exhaust heat and increase the overall cycle efficiency. For humidification-dehumidification-based desalination, the heat pumps are combined with the cycle to carry out the cooling and heating loads simultaneously and recover the brine heat. The exhaust heat can be employed as a heat source for the absorption heat pumps. For membrane-based desalination, the heat pumps utilize waste heat by storing it in the cooling fluid and then transferring it to the input feed water. Furthermore, a plant was able to produce 20,000 Ton/day of freshwater depending on a four-stage heat pump powered by waste heat. Generally, integrating heat pump with any desalination technique improves some parameters but selecting the suitable condition, and the lowest cost is the main criterion of the used methods.