Recover Waste Heat From Fluegas

The ever-increasing cost of fuel and relentless push for environmental responsibility are constant factors in the profitability of many chemical process operations, and fluctuations in the prices of natural gas and other fuels can make it hard to predict future energy costs and the impact of such fluctuations on profits. However, the impact of fluctuating fuel costs, and the regulatory uncertainty related to managing emissions can be reduced by increasing energy efficiency and incorporating innovation into the design of any combustion-related system that produces fluegas. Numerous industrial processes involving furnaces, heaters, kilns and boilers that combust fossil fuels release large quantities of energy in the form of waste heat that is contained in the fluegas. An organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system can efficiently utilize this waste heat to generate electricity, even from relatively low-temperature fluegas streams. An ORC resembles a typical Rankine cycle, but instead of circulating water as the working fluid, an ORC uses a refrigerant — typically an organic fluid such as ethane, propane, propylene or various name-brand refrigerants, such as R-245fa (discussed below). An ORC also operates at lower temperatures compared to…