Thermodynamic Optimization of an Air bottoming Cycle for Waste Heat Recovery from Preheater Tower in a Cement Industry

This work evaluated the air bottoming cycles(ABC) as a technology for waste heat recovery (WHR) at the level of the preheater tower in a cement industry. An optimization code has been developed in MATLAB environment and linked with REFPROP database as a way to design and calculate the different parameters and points of the cycle. The theory of power maximization is adopted and the genetic algorithm is employedasa way to maximize the net power output of the cycle, while a case study of a real cement plant has been taken into consideration for the examination purpose. Results showed that the integration of the ABC cycle for energy valorization contributes to covering around 8.5% of the industry need for electrical energy, by generating an amount of power that can achieve 1.07 MW.In addition, although the cycle has shown a low efficiency, it can be a practical WHR solution especially in case of water deficiency.