1 reply to this topic

[Hatachi]

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Edited by Hatachi, 05 August 2014 - 05:17 AM.

[Art Montemayor]

Firstly, Please don’t make multiple postings of the same topic – especially in the same Forum.  I deleted your other thread on the same topic and I don’t understand why you edited your first posting and then came back to post the same topic in another thread.  Multiple postings just make it harder for our members to respond and to help you.  We simply don’t know which posting to respond to and, consequently, will avoid the postings.

 

You are asking very basic and elementary questions about a process that is the foundation of the energy industry – the Rankine Cycle.  This is the first process that is taught in basic thermodynamic classes in First year engineering courses.  If you don’t understand the Rankine Cycle, you are in potential trouble trying to obtain an engineering degree – particularly in Chemical or Mechanical Engineering.  At this stage in your learnings, you should know this process backwards and forwards.  In trying to help you in understanding what you are up against, my responses to your queries are:

• It is obvious that the ability to vaporize a working fluid is related directly to its properties – particularly to its boiling point and latent heat of vaporization at the working pressure.  For example, study the differences between the Mollier Diagrams for water and for Propane.  If you are unable to do this and find out when you can apply either working fluid, then that should tell you why you are having trouble understanding the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC).
• Just because a heat source is tagged as “sustainable” (whatever that means to an “environmentalist” – whoever that refers to) doesn’t mean that it is different from any other heat source.  It is still applicable to being exploited using the Rankine Cycle.  Refer to the attached illustration.  Note that, just like in a conventional boiler, you have a heat source, an expansion turbine, a condenser, and a pump.  Nothing changes – except the working fluid.  So if you understand how a steam system works, you also understand an ORC.
• I don’t know how you define “sustainable” – everything in this world has a limit and it eventually dies – but you can apply geothermal wells, flue gas stacks, solar, biomass (waste dump sites) and any other heat source.  It all depends on the temperatures available.
• The advantages and disadvantages of ORCs are pretty well known and can easily be Googled.  To me, they are fairly obvious and easy to identify.  Sit down and make a list.

 

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