Thermodynamic feasibility evaluation of an innovative salinity gradient solar ponds-based ORC using a zeotropic mixture as working fluid and LNG cold energy

•A new scheme of ORC integrated with solar pond and LNG cold energy is introduced.•The feasibility of the proposed system is evaluated from thermodynamic view point.•Overall system including is analyzed transiently for Urmia city, Iran.•Zeotropic mixture are used as working fluid in ORC to improve s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied thermal engineering 2021-03, Vol.186, p.116488, Article 116488
Main Authors: Mosaffa, A.H., Farshi, L. Garousi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Electricity
Electricity generation
Evaporation
Exergy
Feasibility studies
Heat loss
Heat recovery
Heat sinks
Liquefied natural gas
LNG cold energy
Organic rankine cycle
Rankine cycle
Salinity
Salinity gradient solar ponds
Solar ponds (heat storage)
Thermodynamics
Transient analysis
Working fluids
Zeotropic mixture
Zeotropic mixtures
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Summary:•A new scheme of ORC integrated with solar pond and LNG cold energy is introduced.•The feasibility of the proposed system is evaluated from thermodynamic view point.•Overall system including is analyzed transiently for Urmia city, Iran.•Zeotropic mixture are used as working fluid in ORC to improve system performance.•The effect of design parameters on the overall system performance is investigated. Thermodynamic feasibility evaluation is investigated for a salinity gradient solar pond-based power generation system. A dual-pressure evaporation organic Rankine cycle using the zeotropic mixture as working fluid is employed for power generation. To increase power generation, liquefied natural gas cold energy is used as a heat sink. Furthermore, to reach reliable results, transient analysis is conducted on the overall system. Also, the solar pond walls shading effect as well as heat losses that could not be ignored (i.e., evaporation heat loss from pond surface) is considered in the simulation. The results show that for a system located in Urmia, Iran, the annual average solar pond energy efficiency for the first year is obtained 20%. Different zeotropic mixtures are examined to achieve the optimal thermal performance of the system. It is concluded that the system using R245ca/R236ea with a mass fraction of 0.6/0.4 has the optimal thermal performance among selected zeotropic mixtures. In this case, the values of the system generated power and exergy destruction are obtained 95.67 MJ year−1 m−2 and 133.7 MJ year−1 m−2, respectively, with an energy efficiency of 3.28%.
ISSN:1359-4311
1873-5606
DOI:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2020.116488