This paper presents the description and operation of a solar-powered hybrid adsorption ice-maker with activated carbon fibre and methanol as the working pair. The analysis indicates that for the given amount of adsorbent/adsorbate, by adapting more adsorbers instead of conventionally used single adsorber bed, the performance of the adsorption system can be improved. Also, the results show that compared to the change in mass of the adsorbent, the amount of water in the tank influences the system performance to a greater extent. Hence, in the present work, an optimum design has been outlined for a solar hybrid adsorption system employing an evacuated vacuum tube collector with an exposed area of 2 m(2) as the heat source. It is shown that, an optimized adsorption system could achieve a coefficient of performance (COP) of about 0.56 and produce around 6 kg of ice a day. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.