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Thermoeconomic analysis of organic Rankine cycle with different working fluids for waste heat recovery from a coal-based thermal power plant

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Abstract

Energy waste from power plants, typically emitted into the atmosphere, contributes to climate change and resource depletion. Integrating heat recovery systems into power plants can improve overall efficiency. This study focused on utilizing waste heat from a 500-MWe coal-based supercritical standalone plant through the organic Rankine cycle. The power plant uses Indian coal as a fuel input, and five distinct working fluids, R245fa, methanol, acetone, ethanol, and benzene, are considered working fluids for the ORC system. Thermodynamic analysis indicates that the standalone plant exhibits energy and exergy efficiencies of 27.33% and 25.01%, respectively. Following the integration of ORC, an overall efficiency improvement is observed. The increment in efficiency is because of the waste heat utilization, where the ORC generates additional electricity generation with outputs of 9.91 MWe for R245fa, 13.71 MWe for methanol, 13.97 MWe for acetone, 14.04 MWe for ethanol, and 14.11 MWe for benzene. Additionally, the study reveals a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the coal-based power plant with the same production of power, amounting to approximately 216.43 tons for R245fa, 299.43 tons for methanol, 305.10 tons for acetone, 306.63 tons for ethanol, and 308.16 tons for benzene. The thermodynamic investigation identifies the superior performance of the benzene-based ORC among the chosen fluids, and the economic study concludes that the ethanol-based ORC stands out as the most favorable option among the considered alternatives.

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Abbreviations

H :

Specific enthalpy (kJkg−1)

\(\dot I\) :

Irreversibility rate (kW)

\(\dot m\) :

Mass flow rate (kgs−1)

N :

Molar flow rate (kmols−1)

Q :

Heat transfer rate (kW)

∆T :

Temperature difference (°C)

\(\dot W\) :

Work rate (kW)

\(\dot E\;\) :

Exergy rate (kW)

\({\dot W_{{\text{waste}}}}\) :

Exergy rate of the recovered waste heat (kW)

₹:

Indian currency symbol (Rupees)

Z:

Cost of each component (Rupees)

η :

Energy efficiency (%)

ε :

Exergy efficiency (%)

\({\Psi }\) :

Specific exergy (kJkg−1)

LMTD:

Logarithmic mean temperature difference

ORC:

Organic Rankine cycle

min:

Minimum

cv:

Control volume

max:

Maximum

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Durgapur, Durgapur, 713209, India

    Nitesh Kumar Choudhary & Sujit Karmakar

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  1. Nitesh Kumar Choudhary
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NKC was involved in data curation, methodology, and writing—original draft preparation. SK helped with conceptualization, reviewing, and editing.

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Correspondence to Sujit Karmakar.

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Choudhary, N.K., Karmakar, S. Thermoeconomic analysis of organic Rankine cycle with different working fluids for waste heat recovery from a coal-based thermal power plant. J Therm Anal Calorim (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-024-13142-3

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