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Heat recovery in energy production from low temperature heat sources
Author(s) -
Brogioli Doriano,
La Mantia Fabio
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.16496
Subject(s) - heat recovery ventilation , heat exchanger , process engineering , waste heat , process integration , heat capacity rate , renewable energy , reuse , pinch analysis , renewable heat , environmental science , thermodynamics , hybrid heat , waste management , mechanical engineering , engineering , plate heat exchanger , physics , electrical engineering
Low‐temperature (<100°C) heat sources have the potential to provide renewable and clean energy. Traditional technologies (thermal engines and thermoelectric solid‐state devices) are not economic in this temperature range. Innovative methods have been recently proposed. In some of them, a process of “heat recovery” has been proposed: it consists in the reuse of the heat provided by the heat source more than one time. Here, we perform a thermodynamic analysis of the heat recovery process. We found that, in the considered temperature range, the temperature difference across the heat exchangers has a major impact on the efficiency, being the main cause of entropy production. By evaluating the efficiency and the surface of heat exchangers needed for producing one unit of power, we found that fundamental processes operating on large temperature difference should be preferred, in order to minimize the capital cost and volumetric dimension of the heat recovery system. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J , 65: 980–991, 2019