Analysis on innovative resorption cycle for power and refrigeration cogeneration

A novel resorption cycle with internal heat recovery process is proposed, which is expected to further explore potentials of power and refrigeration cogeneration. Two sets of basic resorption refrigeration cycles are adopted, which are integrated with turbine/expander to realize quasi-continuous output in both half cycles. An improved cogeneration efficiency could be obtained with safety feature. Different ammonia composite sorbents with better heat and mass transfer performance are selected to investigate the overall performance when heat source temperature is in the range from 200 °C to 360 °C. It is indicated that energy efficiency for power generation is able to reach up to 0.263 at 360 °C heat source temperature while refrigeration coefficient of performance could achieve up to 1.31 at 200 °C heat source temperature. The optimal total exergy efficiency of novel resorption cogeneration cycle is as high as 0.74 by using working pair of FeCl2-CaCl2-BaCl2 at 240 °C heat source temperature. Compared with other sorption cycles for power and refrigeration cogeneration at similar heat source temperatures, the proposed resorption cycle exhibits the highest exergy efficiency, which is about 30% higher than that of water-ammonia sorption cogeneration cycle, and twice higher than that of basic resorption cogeneration cycle.