Pros And Cons Of Organic Rankine Cycle

The world is extremely hanging on fossil fuels such as liquid fuels, coal and natural gas. Figure.1 shows that the world will continue to be dependent on fossil fuels in the future. The inordinate consumption of fossil fuels is draining the reserves. Accordingly, the fossil fuels are becoming more pricey. Even so, the most important concern about the enormous use of fossil fuels is not their prices; it is their negative environmental outcomes. With the combustion of fossil fuels, huge amounts of 〖CO〗_2 are released into the atmosphere. These emissions are considered as the main reason for global warming. The global warming consequences have already become visible to be seen as such the melting of glaciers in the poles and sea level uprise.

ORC (Organic Rankine Cycle)
Although there are several technologies used for WHR applications, Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is the most common and technologically advanced option among those technologies. Organic Rankine Cycle is a type of Rankine cycle which uses organic fluids as a working fluid instead of water.

The reference technology for converting waste heat to electricity is the subcritical ORC (SCORC). Also sometimes defined in the literature as the basic ORC (B). The cycle layout and corresponding T-s diagram of the basic ORC are given in Figure 2. The basic ORC consists of a pump which pressurizes the working fluid and transports it to the evaporator (1). In the evaporator, the working fluid is heated to the point of saturated or superheated vapour (2). Next, the working fluid expands (3) through an expander and produces mechanical work. This shaft power can then be converted to electricity by the generator. The superheated working fluid at the outlet of the expander is condensed to saturated liquid (4) in the condenser. The liquid working fluid is again pressurized by the pump, closing the cycle. The heat sink and heat source are a finite thermal reservoir and are indicated respectively as a line (7)–(8) and