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Title: Design of land-based, foam OTEC plants for bottoming cycles. [Design of waste-heat power plants based on foam OTEC power cycle]

Conference ·
OSTI ID:5578304

Open cycle OTEC technology suggests new concepts for the embediment of commercially feasible bottoming processes to recover energy from, and simultaneously minimize the environmental impact of, hot industrial effluents. The approach would make pollution abatement more economically attractive, yielding clean, low temperature flue gases while recovering a large portion of their thermal energy as electricity. The technology opens the use of lower quality fuels without fear of air pollution caused by their flue gases. Scrubbing would clean and cool the gases, yielding a hot fluid which after proper treatment would serve as the working fluid for open cycle systems using ambient air as the heat sink. Preparatory to demonstrating the Foam Energy Recovery Open Cycle System (FEROCS) at a 1 MW - 10 MW scale, a structural design was initiated for a unit 380 ft high visualized as an inverted, vertical, reinforced concrete U tube of 36 ft I.D. and walls 11 in. thick. The structure is feasible based on present construction practices with reinforced concrete in Puerto Rico. It would cost approximately $1.4 MM and consume 3800 yds/sup 3/ of concrete and 860 tons of reinforcing steel. To accelerate the demonstration of FEROCS, it is proposed to utilize artificially created temperature differences that can be readily obtained between industrial thermal effluents, for example flue gases at > 250/sup 0/F from fossil fuel fired steam generating plants, as the heat source and ambient air as the heat sink. Results are presented of a study made conceptualizing the process using different scrubbing-working fluids.

Research Organization:
Carnegie-Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA (USA); Puerto Rico Univ., Mayaguez
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Solar Energy
DOE Contract Number:
EG-77-S-02-4459
OSTI ID:
5578304
Report Number(s):
CONF-790631-17
Resource Relation:
Conference: 6. OTEC conference, Washington, DC, USA, 19 Jun 1979; Other Information: Portions of document are illegible
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English