Experimental validation of new approach for waste heat recovery from combustion engine for cooling and heating demands from combustion engine for maritime applications

Abstract

Abstract Waste heat recovery is one of the crucial and fundamental issue of energy management related with energy efficiency improvement, fuel savings, and reduction of greenhouse gases emissions. The paper provides with the experimentation of the prototype heat recovery system dedicated to the small and mid-sized maritime combustion engines of the nominal load of 100–250 kW. The waste heat recovery system is covering the innovative low-pressure steam indirect heat transfer subsystem. The recovered heat is consumed by a heating system and a prototype heat driven ejector refrigeration cycle operating with environmentally safe refrigerant. It was demonstrated that the refrigeration system produces up to 30 kW of cold by consuming 75 kW of heat gathered from flue gases. This is the first prototype of the compact heat driven refrigeration system for marine applications. The waste heat recovery system additionally provides with approximately 60 kW heat recovered from water jacked cooling of the engine block which is used for heating capacity dedicated for tap water and space heating purposes. This covers almost all small and mid-sized vessels needs for thermal energy. The prototype design has been approved by two independent maritime classification societies.