THE EXERGETIC EFFICIENCY OF MSF PROCESS AND THE CONDITIONS OF DESALINATION BY WASTE HEAT

The exergy losses and thermodynamic efficiency of MSF plant with brine recirculation are discussed bymeans of temperature difference functions proposed by the auther.In a MSF plant,the irreversible losses are found mainly in irreversible heat-transfer and flash evaporationprocesses.However,the basic variables are the temperature drop from stage to stage and the temperaturedifferences between flashed vapor and cooling water.In this paper,the flash temperature difference func-tion,the heat transfer temperature difference function and the total temperature difference function are sug-gested.The proposed temperature difference functions of MSF plant provide a convenient tool to analyse theirreversible behavior and evaluate the exergetic efficiency of this system,because without such improvement thecalculation of the exergetic efficiency of a MSF plant according to the classical formula will be not onlyinconvenient but also insignificant.As a result of present analysis,the reasonable parameters based on theenergy consumption are easily chosen.The above-mentioned principles are confirmed by commercial plants and a pilot plant in Tianjin.

Industrial-scale Fixed-bed Coal Gasification: Modeling, Simulation and Thermodynamic Analysis

We have developed a process model to simulate the behavior of an industrial-scale pressurized Lurgi fixed-bed coal gasifier using Aspen Plus and General Algebraic Modeling System(GAMS). Reaction characteristics in the fixed-bed gasifier comprising four sequential reaction zones—drying, pyrolysis, combustion and gasification are respectively modeled. A non-linear programming(NLP) model is developed for the pyrolysis zone to estimate the products composition which includes char, coal gases and distillable liquids. A four-stage model with restricted equilibrium temperature is used to study the thermodynamic equilibrium characteristics and calculate the composition of syngas in the combustion and gasification zones. The thermodynamic analysis shows that the exergetic efficiency of the fixed-bed gasifier is mainly determined by the oxygen/coal ratio. The exergetic efficiency of the process will reach an optimum value of 78.3% when the oxygen/coal and steam/coal mass ratios are 0.14 and 0.80, respectively.

Energy and exergy analyses and optimizations for two-stage TEC driven by two-stage TEG with Thomson effect

Based on the non-equilibrium thermodynamics and energy and exergy analyses,a thermodynamic model of two-stage thermoelectric(TE)cooler(TTEC)driven by two-stage TE generator(TTEG)(TTEG-TTEC)combined TE device is established with involving Thomson effect by fitting method of variable physical parameters of TE materials.Taking total number of TE elements as constraint,influences of number distributions of TE elements on three device performance indictors,that is,cooling load,maximum COP and maximum exergetic efficiency,are analyzed.Three number distributions of TE elements are optimized with three maximum performance indictors as the objectives,respectively.Influences of hot-junction temperature of TTEG and coldjunction temperature of TTEC on optimization results are analyzed,and difference between optimization results corresponding to three performance indicators are studied.Optimal performance intervals and optimal variable intervals are provided.Influences of Thomson effect on three general performance indicators,three optimal performance indicators and optimal variables are comparatively discussed.Thomson effect reduces three general performance indicators and three optimal performance indicators of device.When hot-and cold-junction temperatures of TTEG and TTEC are 450,305,325 and 295 K,respectively,Thomson effect reduced maximum cooling load,maximum COP and maximum exergetic efficiency from 9.528 W,9.043×10^(-2)and2.552%to 6.651 W,6.286×10^(-2)and 1.752%,respectively.

Combustion Irreversibilities: Numerical Simulation and Analysis

An exergy analysis was performed considering the combustion of methane and agro-industrial residues produced in Portugal (forest residues and vines pruning). Regarding that the irreversibilities of a thermodynamic process are path dependent, the combustion process was considering as resulting from different hypothetical paths each one characterized by four main sub-processes: reactant mixing, fuel oxidation, internal thermal energy exchange (heat transfer), and product mixing. The exergetic efficiency was computed using a zero dimensional model developed by using a Visual Basic home code. It was concluded that the exergy losses were mainly due to the internal thermal energy exchange sub-process. The exergy losses from this sub-process are higher when the reactants are preheated up to the ignition temperature without previous fuel oxidation. On the other hand, the global exergy destruction can be minored increasing the pressure, the reactants temperature and the oxygen content on the oxidant stream. This methodology allows the identification of the phenomena and processes that have larger exergy losses, the understanding of why these losses occur and how the exergy changes with the parameters associated to each system which is crucial to implement the syngas combustion from biomass products as a competitive technology.