This paper deals with the performance investigation of a silica gel/water-based multi-stage, multi-bed, six-bed adsorption chiller employing re-heat scheme. The innovative chiller is powered by waste heat or renewable energy sources of temperature between 50 and 70 degrees C along with a coolant of inlet temperature at 30 degrees C for air-conditioning purpose. The performance of the six-bed adsorption chiller using re-heat scheme is compared with that of the six-bed chiller without re-heat. With the same operating conditions, such as the heat transfer fluid inlet (HTF) temperatures, HTF flow rates, adsorption/desorption cycle time and same chiller physical dimension, it is found that both the cooling capacity (CC) and the coefficient of performance (COP) of the three-stage chiller with re-heat scheme are superior than those of the three-stage chiller without re-beat scheme. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.