Abstract
This study presents energy and exergy analyses of a Steam Power station of a sulfuric acid plant. A heat recovery system is implemented in the plant to recover waste heat from an exothermic chemical reaction of the sulfuric acid production process. This research aims to analyze system components to determine where energy losses are. A mathematical model was developed using the EES software to perform the calculations. Exergy analysis is computed for real ranges of the main operating parameters. It was found that the key sources of exergy destruction are the waste heat boiler 41 %, followed by the heaters 24.7 % then the steam turbine 18.6 %, and the condenser 13.8 % of the total exergy destruction. The 2nd law efficiency obtained for the waste heat boiler, the steam turbine, and the condenser is 80 %, 82 %, and 37.4 % respectively, while the overall plant exergy efficiency is 68.7 %. The effect of varying different parameters such as reference environmental temperature on main plant components is investigated. The effect of increasing steam inlet temperature, pressure, and mass flow rate on plant exergetic efficiency and exergy destruction is also presented. Results showed that lowering condenser vacuum pressure leads to a 7 % improvement in overall system exergetic efficiency.
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