Organic Rankine cycle for power recovery of exhaust flue gas

•Three types of working fluids are selected for ORC using exhaust flue gas.•The mixture that matches with heat sink has the greatest efficiency.•The mixture that matches with heat source has the lowest superheat degree.•There does not exist a working fluid that satisfies all the indicators.

To study the effects of different working fluids on the performance of organic Rankine cycle (ORC), three working fluids, a mixture that matches with heat source, a mixture that matches with heat sink and a pure working fluid, are selected in this paper. Thermodynamic models were built in Matlab together with REFPROP, with which, the physical properties of the selected working fluids can be acquired. Heat source of the ORC system is the exhaust flue gas of boiler in a 240 MW pulverized coal-fired power plant. Some indicators such as thermal efficiency, inlet temperature of expander, superheat degree, mass flow, volumetric flow, and exergy destruction distribution, as well as the influence of recuperator are studied. The analytical results show that the mixture that matches with heat sink has the greatest efficiency and the mixture that matches with heat source has the lowest superheat degree. The rate of heat exchanged in recuperator to that in evaporator has a maximum value with evaporating pressure. There exists no optimal working fluid for all indicators (thermal efficiency, heat exchanger area, mass flow and volumetric flow etc.). An appropriate working fluid should be chosen by taking both investment cost and power generating benefits into account. The cost-benefit ratio of the proposed ORC plant was evaluated either.