Large quantities of unstable or even intermittent low-grade heat are released from industrial processes, and a large proportion of them remain unused or used inefficiently. This paper is a proposal and analysis of an energy-efficient and economically feasible way of utilizing the heat to produce fresh water through thermal desalination (TD). An absorption-based thermal energy storage (ATES) unit is introduced to mitigate the mismatch between the unstable heat supply and the relatively stable need of TD. After illustrating the integration logic, a combined ATES and TD system is proposed, and the system configuration and operating modes are introduced. To illustrate the application and the energetic and economic performance of the system, a case study is carried out, where the 100 °C saturated steam intermittently available 7.5 h a day from an industrial process is used as the driving heat source. The results show that the system is energy-efficient, demonstrated by the high coefficient of performance, 1.7, of the ATES subsystem. Being able to run in different modes, the system is applicable to various unstable heat sources. As the first attempt to integrate the ATES into desalination, this study provides a new and effective way of utilizing unstable low-grade heat.

工业过程中释放出大量不稳定甚至间歇性的低级热量，其中很大一部分未被利用或使用效率低下。本文提出并分析了一种节能且经济可行的利用热量通过热脱盐（TD）生产淡水的方法。引入了基于吸收的热能存储 (ATES) 单元，以减轻不稳定的热量供应与相对稳定的 TD 需求之间的不匹配。在阐述了集成逻辑之后，提出了一个ATES和TD组合系统，并介绍了系统配置和运行模式。为了说明该系统的应用以及能源和经济性能，进行了一个案例研究，其中 100 °C 饱和蒸汽间歇可用 7. 来自工业过程的 5 公顷每天用作驱动热源。结果表明，该系统是节能的，ATES 子系统的高性能系数 1.7 证明了这一点。该系统可以在不同的模式下运行，适用于各种不稳定的热源。作为将ATES整合到海水淡化中的首次尝试，这项研究提供了一种利用不稳定低品位热的新的有效方法。