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Title: Organic fluids in a supercritical Rankine cycle for low temperature power generation

Journal Article · · Journal of Energy Resources Technology
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4023513· OSTI ID:1095701

This paper presents a performance analysis of a supercritical organic Rankine cycle (SORC) with various working fluids with thermal energy provided from a geothermal energy source. In the present study, a number of pure fluids (R23, R32, R125, R143a, R134a, R218, and R170) are analyzed to identify the most suitable fluids for different operating conditions. The source temperature is varied between 125 C and 200 C, to study its effect on the efficiency of the cycle for fixed and variable pressure ratios. The energy and exergy efficiencies for each working fluid are obtained and the optimum fluid is selected. It is found that thermal efficiencies as high as 21% can be obtained with 200 C source temperature and 10 C cooling water temperature considered in this study. For medium source temperatures (125 150 C), thermal efficiencies higher than 12% are obtained.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
DOE Contract Number:
DE-AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1095701
Journal Information:
Journal of Energy Resources Technology, Vol. 135, Issue 4; ISSN 0195-0738
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English