Energy, Vol.159, 1206-1217, 2018
Exergy-based thermal management of a steelmaking process linked with a multi-generation power and desalination system
A novel multi-generation integrated energy system is presented in this paper, consisting of a gas-steam combined cycle, four-step thermochemical copper-chlorine (Cu-Cl) cycle, proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination unit. Effective thermal management of waste heat is recognized as a key objective in the steel industry. Hydrogen, electricity, fresh water and heat are the useful outputs of the integrated system. The produced electricity supplies the electricity load required by the electrolyzer, compressor and pumps while the supplementary electricity is an additional system product. Aspen Plus and Engineering Equation Solver (EES) are used for modeling and simulation of the multi-generation system. The overall hydrogen production rate of the designed system is 51,8 kg/hr and the net power production is 1.7 MW. The overall energy efficiency of the multi-generation system is 63.3% and the exergy efficiency is 58.8%. Further sensitivity studies and outcomes are presented and discussed in this paper. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:Thermal management;Desalination;Hydrogen production;Multi-generation;Energy;Exergy;Efficiency