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Importance of Exergy Analysis in Industrial Processes

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 Importance of Exergy Analysis in Industrial Processes
Ahmet Z. Sahin
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Email: azsahin@kfupm.edu.sa

Abstract energy flow available from concentrated

Exergy analysis which may be considered
as accounting of the use of energy and
material resources provide information on
how effective a process takes place
towards conserving natural resources.
Industrial heating processes are very
inefficient from the point of view of
second law of thermodynamics. This is
because of the fact that the exergy value of
heat is much lower than its energy value.
In the present work, the importance and
role of exergy analysis on the design and
development of sustainable processes is
discussed through a number of practical
and industrial case studies.
Keywords: Exergy analysis, Sustainable
process, second law analysis,
1. Introduction
The increased awareness that the world’s
energy resources are limited has caused
scientists to take a closer look at the
energy conversion devices and to develop
new techniques to better utilize the
existing limited resources. As the first law
of thermodynamics deals with the quantity
of energy and asserts that energy can not
be created or destroyed, the second law of
thermodynamics deals with the quality of
energy which is subject to degradation
during a process as a result of the entropy
production [1].
We make our whole technological world
run by grabbing as much as we can of the
energy sources like fuels to run an infinite
variety of machines, electrical generators
and vehicles. However, when we change
energy from one form to another, from
energy in a fuel to pushing a piston or even
water running down from a dam to the
dynamos below, it is impossible for us to
get to use all of the energy in the
concentrated energy source for the jobs we
want it to do. Some always must be
wasted, mainly as unusable heat to the
environment [2].
The performance of engineering systems is
degraded by the presence of
irreversibilities, and the entropy
production is a measure of the magnitudes
of the irreversibilities present during that
process. The greater the extent of
irreversibilities, the greater the entropy
production. Therefore, entropy can be used
as a quantitative measure of
irreversibilities associated with a process.
It is also used to establish criteria for the
performance of engineering devices. It is
now becoming a technological challenge
to build high performance engineering
devises that are not only efficient from the
quantity of energy viewpoint (the first law)
but also efficient in conserving the quality
of energy (second law) by minimizing the
entropy production [1].
Exergy analysis that may be regarded as
accounting of the use of energy and
material resources provides information as
to how effective and how balanced a
process is in the matter of conserving
natural resources [3]. This type of
information makes it possible to identify
areas in which technical and other
improvements could be undertaken and
indicates the priorities that could be
assigned to conservation procedures.
Exergy conscious utilization of energy
sources would help advance technological
development towards resource-saving and
efficient technology can be achieved by
improving design of processes with high
exergetic efficiency. Application of the
exergy analysis in design and development
of sustainable processes also provides
information for long-term planning of
resource management [4].
T0
Quality = 1 − (2)
Ts
in which T0 is the reference temperature
(ambient temperature) and Ts is the
temperature of the stream.
Table 1 shows some examples of the
difference between energy and exergy.
Clearly, hot water and steam with the same
enthalpy have different exergy or quality
values because of their different
temperatures. Fuels such as natural gas and
gasoline have exergetic values comparable
to their net heating value [5].

2. Exergy Table 1: Examples of energy and exergy

values for different sources.
Exergy is generally defined as the
Source Energy Exergy Quality
maximum amount of work that can be (J) (J) (%)
obtained from a stream of matter, heat or Water at 0 oC 100 9 9
work as it comes to equilibrium with a Water at 25 oC 100 0 0
reference environment. It is a measure of Water at 80 oC 100 16 16
the potential of a stream to cause change. Natural Gas 100 99 99
During a process exergy is not conserved, Electricity or 100 100 100
Work
but it is destroyed due to irreversibility.
Analyzing the exergy flows, processes can
It should be noted that a stream has a
be optimized into more sustainable ones.
certain amount of exergy both when its
Both environmental performance and
temperature is higher than the environment
economical aspects can be improved by
and when its temperature is lower than the
exergo-economics analysis.
environment. The exergy contained by in a
stream at a temperature lower than its
Quality of energy is evident from daily life
environment is an ability of the stream, to
experience. For example, heat has a lower
let the thermal energy in the environment
energy quality (exergy) compared with
flow into it. This is referred as the cooling
work. For this reason, heat cannot be
capacity. Figure 1 shows quality variation
converted into work by 100% efficiency.
as function of stream temperature.
On the other hand, electricity or
mechanical work can be converted to heat
completely. Exergy can be calculated by
product of energy and quality [3,4] i.e.

Exergy = Energy * Quality (1)

where the quality is given by

2

Energy Quality
1.0 T0/Ts
Figure 1: Quality of energy as function of
stream temperature.
3. Other Types of Exergy
Physical exergy is the work obtainable by
taking the substance through reversible
process from its initial state (T,P), to the
reference state (T0,P0). The physical
exergy may have a thermal and a pressure
(mechanical) component.
Chemical exergy refers to the maximum
work that can be extracted from a
combined system of control mass and
environment as the control mass comes
into thermal and mechanical equilibrium
with the environment without chemically
reacting with the environment.
The mixing exergy represents the exergy
which is lost when pure substances are
mixed. So the mixing exergy, which is
often incorporated in the chemical exergy,
always has a negative value.
4. Second law (exergy) analysis
According to the first law of
thermodynamics, energy is neither lost nor
destroyed but it is converted from one
form to another. During this conversion,
however, the energy loses a certain quality
which can be described as its ability to do
work. Since it is the ability of energy to do
work which gives energy its value to
society, it is important to conserve
available work rather than energy.
3
Performing a second law efficiency
analysis, quality energy consumption
could be reduced considerably in many
areas of the economy. The world is
changing rapidly due to the increasing
wealth and size of the population.
Therefore, there is a growing need for
more efficient and sustainable production
processes.
The general form of exergy balance
equation of a system is described as
follows
Input Exergy - Exergy Consumption =
Stored Exergy + Output Exergy
(3)
The difference between the input exergy
and the exergy consumption becomes
either stored exergy or output exergy
shown in the right-hand side of the above
equation.
5. Second Law Efficiency
Second law efficiency is defined as the
ratio of the minimum amount of available
work required to do a particular job to the
amount of available work actually used to
do the job. It accounts not only for energy
quantity but also for energy quality. Some
examples of first and second law
efficiency in several sectors of the industry
are given in Table 2.
Table 2: Estimated first and second law
efficiency values for various processes in
industrial sector [6].
In order to illustrate the distinction
between the first and second law
efficiency, consider the following
examples.
 In order to improve the efficient utilization

Estimated First Law

Law Efficiency (%)

Estimated Second
of the exergy, consider an exergy-

Efficiency (%)
conserving natural gas furnace design. In
this improved design, the heat energy
obtained from the combustion of the
Industrial Sector natural is used in a reversible heat engine
to produce power and the power produced
Space Furnaces 60 6 by the heat engine is used by a reversible
Heating Heat Pump 270 9 heat pump to heat the room. The efficiency
Water Electric 75 1-2 of the reversible heat engine operating
Heating Gas 50 3 between temperatures of 2000 oC
Air Conditioning 200 5 (adiabatic flame temperature of natural gas
Industrial Process Steam 80 25
Direct Heat 40 20
combustion) and 0 oC (ambient
temperature) would be 0.88. The
coefficient of performance of the heat
pump operating between the ambient
6. Electric Heater
temperature and a room temperature of 20
o
C would be 14.6. Therefore, the improved
As electricity is used in an electric heater,
design of exergy-conserving furnace could
the availability is lost and cannot be used
have a maximum performance of 0.88 x
to produce any more work. The energy in
14.6 = 12.9; that is a first law efficiency or
the electricity is almost completely
coefficient of performance (COP) of 1290
transformed into heat energy to heat the
%! In this case, the second law efficiency
home. The first law efficiency for this
would be 100% because the devices used
heating device could be nearly 100 percent
are considered to be reversible.
as the energy in the electricity is converted
to heat energy. However, the second law
On the other hand, the second law
efficiency is on the order of only a few
efficiency of the original furnace with 85%
percent that is considerably less than the
thermal efficiency is calculated to be
first law efficiency.
85/1290 = 0.066, i.e., only 6.6% which
indicates that 93.4% of the exergy is
7. Natural Gas Furnace
wasted. Utilizing a heat engine and a heat
pump as explained above could save a
In a natural gas furnace heat is transferred
major portion of this wasted exergy and
from the combustion gases to room air
therefore great amount of energy savings
across a heat exchanger. The combustion
is possible.
products (e.g., water, carbon dioxide,
carbon monoxide) are exhausted to the
8. Heating of Ice
environment, thus energy is lost to the
environment via these combustion
Another example of inefficient process
products contributing to the inefficiency of
(from the second law perspective) is the
the furnace. A mid-efficiency furnace
heating of ice through direct heat addition
would have a first law thermal efficiency
by either electrical resistance heater or
of about 85% [7]. The second law
natural gas combustion. Ice at a
efficiency in this case is also only a few
temperature of – 20 oC has a considerable
percent. This and the previous example
amount of energy quality as shown in Fig.
show that a major portion of the exergy
1. This energy quality is simply wasted
available in the form of electricity or
during the process of direct heating.
natural gas is wasted to perform the
heating process in these applications.

4
In order to improve efficiency of the • Balanced ventilation system with
process and decrease the exergy losses, heat recovery.
consider utilizing a reversible heat engine
operating between the room temperature of Exergy losses in different parts of the
20 oC and the temperature of ice/water. It heating system were evaluated (Fig. 2).
can be shown that the maximum total Considerable amounts of exergy savings
exergy (work generated by the reversible have been observed.
heat engine) of 1 kg of ice at – 20 oC is
28.8 kJ. As this work is produced through
the heat engine, the temperature of
ice/water rises to 20 oC, i.e. the room 2000
temperature. If this energy generated is Base case
stored and then used to operate a reversible 1500 Imroved design

Exergy losses (W )
heat pump, it is possible to increase the
temperature of water up to a maximum of 1000
88 oC. In this improved design, no external
500
energy is used and therefore the heating
process from – 20 oC up to 88 oC is 0
achieved with no cost. However, further

e
n
Em n
e

En i r
n
heating will require additional energy

lo p
io
en rm

io
ag
io

A
iss
ut
at

om
o

or

ve
ib
sf

er

St

str

Ro
an
input. It should be noted that liquid water

Di
Tr

G
n.
at 20 oC has no energy quality and
.E
im
Pr
Components
therefore the exergy is zero. Therefore,
heating liquid water at 20 oC to a
temperature of 88 oC requires external Figure 2: Comparison of exergy losses in
energy input, so heating liquid water may different parts of the heating system.
be more costly than heating ice!

9. Heating a Residential Building

International Energy Agency published a
technical report [8] about exergy analysis
of a residential multifamily building.
Several design modifications were made in
order to improve the heating system. The
base case was an LNG fired high
temperature boiler with high temperature
radiators. Indoor and exterior air
temperatures were 20 oC and 0 oC,
respectively. Solar radiation on windows
and internal gains were neglected. The
following design modifications were
made:
• LNG condensing boiler
• Ground source heat pump
• Low temperature floor heating
• Higher insulation standard, tighter
envelope
10. Recovery of Exergy Losses
Lost exergy during heat transfer can be
recovered by adding reversible heat engine
and heat pump to the system. Consider a
heat transfer of 1000 kJ between two
reservoirs at 200 oC and 120 oC
respectively. The exergy lost during this
heat transfer process is 126 kJ. If the heat
transfer of 1000 kJ is used to operate a
reversible heat engine between 200 oC
reservoir and 20 oC surroundings the work
production would be 380 kJ. On the other
hand, a reversible heat pump between the
ambient temperature and 120 oC reservoir
will consume 254 kJ of energy in order to
supply 1000 kJ to the reservoir. The
energy difference between the heat engine
production and heat pump consumption is
380 – 254 = 126 kJ, that is the exergy loss
is recovered.

5
 Thermal, Chemical and
11. Conclusion Metallurgical Processes.
Hemisphere Publishing
Heating processes are highly inefficient Corporation, 1988.
from the point of view of second law
analysis. This is due to the fact that the [4] T.J. Kotas, The Exergy Method of
exergy value of heat is often much lower Thermal Plant Analysis.
than its energy value, particularly at Butterworths: Anchor Brendon
temperatures close to ambient temperature. Ltd., 1985.
Exergy analysis that may be regarded as
accounting of the use of energy and [5] M. Shukuya and D. Komuro,
material resources provides information as Exergy-Entropy Process of Passive
to how effective and how balanced a Solar Heating and Global
process is in the matter of conserving Environmental Systems’. Solar
natural resources. This type of information Energy, vol. 58(1–3), pp. 25–32,
makes it possible to identify areas in which 1996.
technical and other improvements could be
undertaken and indicates the priorities that [6] R.L. Cornelissen, Thermodynamics
could be assigned to conservation and sustainable development, The
procedures. Exergy conscious utilization use of exergy analysis and the
of energy sources would help advance reduction of irreversibility,
technological development towards Febodruk Bv, Enschede, The
resource-saving and efficient technology Netherlands, 1997.
can be achieved by improving design of
processes with high exergetic efficiency. [7] Carson, Dunlop and Associates,
Application of the exergy analysis in http://www.carsondunlop.com/repo
design and development of sustainable rts/hi-eff.html, Toronto, Ontario,
processes also provides information for April 2000.
long-term planning of resource
management. [8] International Energy Agency,
Technical Report, Energy
Acknowledgments Conservation in Buildings and
Community Systems, October
The author acknowledges the support of 2002.
King Fahd University of Petroleum and
Minerals for this work.

References

[1] A. Bejan, Advanced Engineering

Thermodynamics, Wiley –
Interscience Publication, John
Wiley & Sons, New York, 1988.

[2] M.J. Moran, Availability Analysis,

A guide to efficient energy use,
ASME Press, 1989.

[3] J. Szargut, D.R. Morris and F.R.

Stewart, Exergy Analysis of

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