An innovative organic Rankine cycle approach for high temperature applications

Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC) using toluene and hexamethyldisiloxane (MM) are put forward as a means of improving the efficiency of automotive heavy duty engines, and provide a reference for comparison in this study. Despite an efficiency improvement potential of 4-4.7%, the current ORC approach is not reaching the required fuel savings within the expected costs. As such, innovative pathways to improve the ORC performance and cost-effectiveness are of great importance to the research community. This paper presents a partial solution by means of a conceptual overview and simulation results for ORCs especially tailored for high-temperature applications. A fundamental revision of the heat transfer and expansion characteristics is presented, without increasing the system integration complexity. These characteristics are attributed to the use of formulated organic blends with toluene and MM as a significant blend component. The developed 22 criteria blend screening methodology is presented. Simulation results show that for an equivalent expansion volume flow ratio, and product of heat transfer coefficient and area, the blends offer a 22-24% improvement in the net power. This resulted in a 15-18% cost savings compared to the reference ORC. The simulations were conducted in Aspen HYSYS V8 using the Peng-Robinson and Wilson fluid property packages.