Improving Energy Efficiency with Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs)

摘要

Both the increasing pressure on process efficiency and the impact of human activities on environment require maximising the thermodynamic return on all heat sources. A large amount of energy is released at the stacks or in the cold sinks of industrial processes but because of the low temperature, it cannot be converted in power with the conventional water- steam cycles. In these conditions, steam is characterised by low saturation pressures and low densities which would result in very large equipment size and low efficiencies, leading to complex multi-stage turbines and huge condensers.