Thermal analysis of solar energy based organic Rankine cycle cascaded with vapor compression refrigeration cycle

Abstract

The air conditioning and refrigeration applications use a significant portion of the electrical energy. This research analyses a performance of refrigeration system, which comprises on different configurations of solar based organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and vapor compression refrigeration (VCR) cycles requiring low evaporation temperatures. In this research, the dry natural hydrocarbons such as n-Decane, n-Dodecane and Toluene have been chosen to serve as the working fluids in ORC. Whereas in VCR cycle natural hydrocarbons such as Ethane, Propane, isobutane, isopentane and isohexane have been used because traditional working fluids have a negative environmental impact due to high values of ozone depletion and global warming potential. The simulated results showed that the facility can be operated efficiently with the use solar thermal energy resources within the temperature range 90 to 315ºC and decreasing the need for conventional fossil fuel resources. It was also revealed that the highest efficiency was achieved by n-Dodecane in regenerative ORC, which is 35.34 % at the evaporation temperature of 315ºC and the highest overall coefficient of performance (COPoverall) in regenerative ORCCRS facility was achieved by n-Dodecane in ORC and isopentane in refrigeration cycle which is 1.017 while in case of Simple ORC–VCR facility the highest COPoverall was achieved by Toluene in ORC and isopentane in refrigeration cycle, which is 0.7174 at the evaporation temperature 315ºC.