An innovative multifunction heat pipe type sorption refrigeration system is designed, in which a two-stage sorption thermodynamic cycle based on two heat recovery processes was employed to reduce the driving heat source temperature. and the composite sorbent of CaCl2 and activated carbon was used to improve the mass and heat transfer performances. For this test unit, the heating, cooling and heat recovery processes between two reactive beds are performed by multifunction heat pipes. The aim of this paper is to investigate the cycled characteristics of two-stage sorption refrigeration system with heat recovery processes. The two sub-cycles of a two-stage cycle have different sorption platforms though the adsorption and desorption temperatures are equivalent. The experimental results showed that the pressure evolutions of two beds are nearly equivalent during the first stage, and desorption pressure during the second stage is large higher than that in the first stage while the desorption temperatures are same during the two operation stages. In comparison with conventional two-stage cycle, the two-stage cycle with heat recovery processes can reduce the heating load for desorber and cooling load for adsorber, the coefficient of performance (COP) has been improved more than 23% when both cycles have the same regeneration temperature of 103 degrees C and the cooling water temperature of 30 degrees C. The advanced two-stage cycle provides an effective method for application of sorption refrigeration technology under the condition of low-grade temperature heat source or utilization of renewable energy. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.