JA
cIMOVI
c ET AL.
of the elevated temperatures of heat source fluid, it is
very important to avoid hot spots on the side of the work-
ing fluid.20 This fact is important for ORC since it may
lead to the necessity of including an additional heat
exchanger (thermal oil—working fluid) for indirect
heating and evaporation of working fluid.
Special issue with ORC is the generation of vacuum
at the turbine outlet. It is, therefore, necessary to perform
continuous evacuation of the air which enters the plant
by infiltration. Certain quantity of the working fluid is
also evacuated along with the air and this loss must be
made up, which results in the increase of the operating
expenses. Moreover, the operating expenses for ORC
must also account for the presence of the vacuum pump,
resulting in decrease of the plant cycle efficiency.
Another problem typically encountered in these types
of plants is the possible contamination of the ambient
temperature with the vapor of working fluid (ie, organic
fluid). If this vapor is not eliminated, it could result in
endangerment of operators' health (most organic fluids
present high health hazards) and possibility of fire.
Resolving these environmental and fire issues results in
the increase of the capital expenses of the plant.
Following example of an ORC plant that uses toluene
as working fluid (from Reference 25) illustrates the above
issue. As shown in Figure 3, downstream of the turbine
toluene at a pressure of 0.541 barA and at a temperature
of 85
C (stream 1) enters the collecting tank, CT. Due to
the presence of vacuum inside the collecting tank, CT,
there is an air infiltration of ˙mAir = 0:100kg=h . Vacuum
pump, VP, is used to evacuate the mixture of infiltrated
air and toluene vapor (stream 3) from the collecting tank,
CT, and evacuate it into the atmosphere (stream 6).
Upstream of the vacuum pump, there is a cooler, H
(HECL), of toluene-air mixture which reduces the tem-
perature of the mixture from 85
C (stream 3) to 32
C
(stream 5) resulting in the total mixture flow at vacuum
pump outlet (stream 6) of ˙mToluene + Air = 0:136kg=h
FIGURE 3 Excerpt from a typical ORC plant
(discharged into the atmosphere) with the outlet concen-
tration of toluene of yToluene, out = 0.1kmolToluene/
kmolToluene + Air = 105ppm. This concentration is outside
of the permissible concentration of toluene in the air. In
this case, the heat duty of the cooler, H (HECL), is
0.23 kW and the yearly loss of toluene is over 300 kg.
Time-weighted average concentration (TWA) for toluene,
which is defined as the average workplace exposure to
any hazardous contaminant or agent using the baseline
of an 8 hour per day or 40 hours per week work schedule,
typically ranges from 100 to 200 ppm (depending on the
organization or institution which defines it). For refer-
ence, the permissible TWA concentration of toluene in
the air defined by Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) is 200 ppm, which corresponds
to the concentration of 750 mg/m3 and the same value
defined by the National Institute for Occupational Safety
and Health (NIOSH:division of the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention—CDC) is 100 ppm (375 mg/m3).
In order to achieve the permissible toluene concentra-
tion defined by OSHA, it would be necessary either to
cool the toluene-air mixture to −55
C or to “dilute” the
mixture with a substantial amount of fresh air (ie, in case
of a closed plant it would be necessary to increase the
number of changes of air within the containment room).
Alternative solution can be the implementation of deep
catalytic combustion unit (burning at relatively low tem-
peratures in the range 200-400
C by using catalyst). How-
ever, this solution can prove to be costly since it requires
additional oxygen and fuel or an alternative electrical
current for heating of the mixture of air and operating
fluid coming from the ORC, as well as a reactor, with the
catalyst that needs to be replaced occasionally.27,28
5 | KALINA NOVEL BOTTOMING
CYCLE ( NBC)
In Reference 29, Kalina has defined a novel bottoming
cycle (Figure 4). This is another thermodynamic cycle
used for converting thermal energy into mechanical work
using multicomponent working agent (typically
ammonia-water binary mixture) and was originally
designed to generate energy from low-temperature heat
sources and replace the Rankine cycle as a bottoming
cycle in power plants. This cycle, in its essence, repre-
sents a merge between Rankine cycle and ammonia
absorption refrigeration cycle.
As indicated in Reference 29, the NBC is specifically
designed to replace the Rankine cycle in combined-cycle
energy system or for generating electricity using low-
grade heat sources. The author claims that the efficiency
of the NBC is approximately 1.6 to 1.9 times higher than