Heat-powered cycles: are the process industries ‘missing the boat’?

Heat-powered cycles (HPCs) are well established in many areas of life. The heat pump (vapour compression cycle) is becoming an essential feature of houses in many countries, and mechanical vapour recompression systems are popular in the food and drink sector of the process industries. However, historically, earlier energy crises have spurred many advances in the use of HPCs in industry—the coal crisis in the 1940s and the oil crises in the 1970s being noteworthy examples. More recently, in spite of technological advances in materials and manufacturing technologies, in particular in furthering intensification and miniaturisation, the benefits these have brought to HPCs seem to have neglected uses in the process industries. This needs remedying, if competitiveness, coupled with carbon emission reductions, are to retain and strengthen their important position in industry. In conjunction with the examination of some early examples of HPCs where size and cost may have inhibited investment, this paper presents some heat transfer and manufacturing technologies that might help to break perceived cost barriers to further progress the use of HPCs. Copyright , Oxford University Press.