Life cycle assessment based exergoenvironmental analysis of a cogeneration system used for ceramic factories

Abstract

In this study, the life cycle assessment based exergoenvironmental analyses are performed to the air compressor (AC), combustion chamber (CC), gas turbine (GT), wall tile dryer (WD), ground tile dryer (GD) and hot air pipeline (PL) included cogeneration system (COGEN) used for ceramic tile factories. Five different environment temperatures are considered for the assessment. Firstly, fuel-product based exergy analysis is performed to the system, and environmental impact parameters are assigned to the exergetic values. The environmental impact rates are found high due to irreversibility rate and low exergy efficiency, especially in the components such as CC (106503.793 mPts/GJ at 30 °C), WD (51914.721 mPts/GJ at 30 °C) and GD (62771.217 mPts/GJ at 30 °C) where chemical combustion reactions occur. Depending on the exergy destruction rate, the relative differences of environmental impact rates in these components are found to be quite higher than other components. The exergy efficiencies of WD (17.430 % at 30 °C) and GD (23.131 % at 30 °C) are lower than other components, and the maximum average specific environmental impacts of fuel are calculated for these components which are calculated as 5549.409 mPts/GJ and 5106.257 mPts/GJ at 30 °C, respectively.