Improved Organic Rankine Cycle System Coupled with Mechanical Vapor Recompression Distillation for Separation of Benzene-Toluene Mixture

Abstract

Herein, we propose three improved Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) Systems to separate the benzene-toluene mixture by the combination of ORC with Mechanical Vapor Recompression (MVR) heat pump distillation process. A chemical process software, Aspen plus, was used to simulate all the processes. The improved ORC system was employed to recover waste heat from the MVR heat pump system. The ORC waste-heat power generation process was obtained based upon the net power output and cycle’s thermal efficiency. Finally, energy saving was considered as primary criteria for the ORC system selection. The results showed that the ORC system by exhaust stream regenerative cycle (EGC) coupled with MVR heat pump distillation process saves 21.29% electrical energy. The ORC system by EGC coupled with MVR heat pump distillation process has more energy-saving advantages.