Thermoeconomic Evaluation of Modular Organic Rankine Cycles for Waste Heat Recovery over a Broad Range of Heat Source Temperatures and Capacities

摘要

Industrial waste heat recovery by means of an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) can contribute to the reduction of CO 2 emissions from industries. Before market penetration, high efficiency modular concepts have to be developed to achieve appropriate economic value for industrial decision makers. This paper aims to investigate modularly designed ORC systems from a thermoeconomic point of view. The main goal is a recommendation for a suitable chemical class of working fluids, preferable ORC design and a range of heat source temperatures and thermal capacities in which modular ORCs can be economically feasible. For this purpose, a thermoeconomic model has been developed which is based on size and complexity parameters of the ORC components. Special emphasis has been laid on the turbine model. The paper reveals that alkylbenzenes lead to higher exergetic efficiencies compared to alkanes and siloxanes. However, based on the thermoeconomic model, the payback periods of the chemical classes are almost identical. With the ORC design, the developed model and the boundary conditions of this study, hexamethyldisiloxane is a suitable working fluid and leads to a payback period of less than 5 years for a heat source temperature of 400 to 600 °C and a mass flow rate of the gaseous waste heat stream of more than 4 kg/s.