Impact of turbine characteristics on low temperature organic Rankine cycles operating with zeotropic and azeotropic mixtures

Abstract

The urgent need to mitigate the environmental impacts of fossil fuel combustion has spurred interest in renewable energy sources for electricity generation, particularly solar organic Rankine cycles (ORCs). This study investigates the potential of fluid mixtures in low-temperature ORCs, focusing on a radial turbine. While fluid mixtures have shown promise for heat recovery in low-temperature applications, previous research often overlooked turbine characteristics by assuming constant efficiencies. This study set out to examine the impact of turbine characteristics on the ORC performance when adapting fluid mixtures by coupling a cycle-turbine model incorporated with real gas analysis. The outcomes of the turbine model are exported to the cycle model to evaluate its performance. Results reveal significant variations in cycle performance due to turbine power and efficiency, outweighing the effects of temperature glide in fluid mixtures. Although fluid mixtures enhance thermal compatibility with heat sources, certain pure fluids exhibit superior cycle performance owing to better turbine characteristics. Moreover, the assumption of constant turbine efficiency compromises result accuracy by up to 45 % compared to dynamic turbine efficiency. Notably, the isobutane/isopentane mixture (0.7/0.3) emerges as the most favourable, achieving a turbine power of 48.90 kW, turbine efficiency of 71 %, and thermal efficiency of 12.29 %.