Thermodynamic modelling and analysis of a solar organic Rankine cycle employing thermofluids

Abstract This paper presents thermodynamic modelling and simulation study of a small scale saturated solar organic Rankine cycle (ORC) which consists of a stationary, flat plate solar energy collector that is utilised as a vapour generator, a vane expander, a water-cooled condenser and a pump. Simulations are conducted under constant condensing temperature/pressure and various cycle pressure ratios (PR) for 24 organic thermofluids including Hydrocarbons (HCs), Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), Hydrofluoroethers (HFEs) and Hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs). Special attention is given to the influence of PR and fluids’ physical properties on the solar ORC performance as well as fluids’ environmental and safety impacts including global warming potential (GWP), flammability and toxicity. The simulation results indicate that when the same fluid is considered, pressure ratio of the cycle leads to various operating conditions such as collector (evaporating) pressure which results in various collector, expander and cycle efficiency. For instance, increasing the pressure ratio of the cycle enhances the net work output and the thermal efficiency of the cycle, whereas it decreases the flat plate collector efficiency. The results also indicate that the proposed system produces the maximum net work output of 210.45 W with a thermal efficiency of 9.64% by using 1-butene. Furthermore, trans-2-butene, cis-2-butene, R600, R600a, R601, R601a and neopentane (HC), R227ea and R236fa (HFC), RC318 (PFC) and R1234ze (HFO) show promising solar ORC thermal performances. However, the flammability problem of HCs and global warming potential issue of HFCs and PFCs limit their applications, owing to the safety and environmental concerns. On the other hand, in terms of the environmental impact, thermofluids such as RE347mcc, RE245fa2 (HFEs) and R1234ze, R1233zd (HFOs) offer an attractive alternative, yet they were neither the most efficient, nor generated the highest amount of net work output. This paper provides thermofluids’ selection guidelines to achieve maximum efficiency within solar thermal energy technologies while keeping environmental impacts into considerations.

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