Thermal Performance Enhancement of Novel Integrated Vapor Compression and Organic Rankine Cycle for Electricity Production: A Full-Condensing vs. Desuperheating Approach Comparison in Ultra-Low-Grade Waste Heat Recovery

This paper presents the thermodynamic analysis, performance assessment and working fluid selection for a novel integrated vapor compression cycle and the organic Rankine cycle system, which recovers ultra-low-temperature waste heat (50°C) rejected by the condenser of a vapor compression cycle (VCC). The study is conducted on a vapor compression system of a 35kW cooling capacity, followed by the component sizing of the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) based on the available waste heat in the condenser of the refrigeration system. The effect of the operational parameters of the vapor compression cycle on the overall system performance are investigated. The system performance of the integrated system is estimated in terms of coefficient of performance, cycle thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency. The novel integrated systems has been analyzed thermodynamically for 36 pairs of pure refrigerants. Results show that the working fluid pair R600a/R141b with combined coefficient of performance (3.54), ORC thermal efficiency (3.05%), electricity saving ratio (13.34%) and total exergy destruction (6.94 kW) is the most suitable VCC/ORC working fluid pair in full condensing method. R407c-R141b is found to be the best working fluid pair in desuperheating method for the same integrated system. The performance analysis for full condensation and desuperheating methods are also investigated. The results indicate a 12.5% improvement in the coefficient of performance of the integrated system using the full condensation method and a 2.5% improvement using the desuperheating method compared to the standalone air conditioning system. Additionally, the sensitivity analysis results show that there exists optimum operating condition that maximize the system performance of the integrated system.