The effect of different combinations of ammonia-water Rankine and absorption refrigeration cycles on the exergoeconomic performance of the cogeneration cycle

Abstract

In this study, the effect of different combinations of the ammonia-water Rankine power cycle and the ammonia-water absorption refrigeration cycle are investigated on the exergoeconomic performance of the cogeneration cycle. For this purpose, three different configurations from combining these cycles for simultaneous production of power and cooling are considered. After the calculation of the unit cost and cost rate of each stream as well as the exergoeconomic parameters of each component, the critical components of the cogeneration cycles are identified and some corrections for better performance of these components in the cogeneration cycles are suggested. Then, a parametric study is done and the effects of simultaneous variations of operating parameters on the exergoeconomic performance of the cogeneration cycles are examined. Also, the considered configurations are optimized using five objective functions including minimum unit cost of products, minimum unit cost of produced exergy, minimum overall amount of ĊD+Ż and maximum the first and second law efficiencies. The optimization results indicate that the different combinations of the ammonia-water Rankine and absorption refrigeration cycles are very effective on the thermodynamic and exergoeconomic performance of the cogeneration cycle. Finally, the payback period is calculated for each considered configuration in all optimum conditions.