This work presents the description and experimental investigation of a solar- powered adsorption cooling tube using the working pair of zeolite13X- water. The operating principle of this solar cooling tube, which consists of four major components, a solar collector, an adsorbent bed, a condenser, and an evaporator all in one glass tube, is also presented. To evaluate the performance of this solar adsorption cooling tube, an experiment was conducted on a typical day ( total solar energy to the solar adsorption cooling tube was about 23.5 MJ/ m(2) kJ and the variation of ambient temperature was from 25 to 34 degrees C). The experimental results show that a solar adsorption cooling tube is capable of heating 4 kg of water to about 50 degrees C in daytime and 4 kg of water to about 39 degrees C at night, as well as producing a refrigeration capacity of about 276 kJ. Its coefficient of performance ( COPsys) can reach 0.22.