Abstract The global transition toward low-global warming potential (GWP) working fluids in Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC) presents complex thermo-economic and environmental dynamics. This study performs a comparative thermo-economic and environmental assessment of a recuperative ORC system utilizing hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) fluids R1233zd(E) and R1234ze(Z) as sustainable alternatives to the conventional R245fa for low-grade geothermal heat recovery (150 ℃). To overcome the computational cost of rigorous thermodynamic simulations near the critical point, a novel data-driven optimization framework is proposed. A comprehensive dataset of 3000 design points was generated using a robust process model incorporating flow-regime-dependent heat transfer correlations. A Bayesian-optimized support vector regression (SVR) surrogate model was developed to replace the physics-based solver, achieving a near-perfect prediction accuracy of R 2 = 0.9999 while accelerating the simulation speed by over 10,000 times (from 1.45 s to 0.12 ms). Subsequently, a weighted gray wolf optimizer (GWO) coupled with the SVR model was employed to the thermo-economic performance trajectory. The multi-objective optimization reveals a highly synergistic relationship between efficiency and cost for this specific application; R1233zd(E) is the superior candidate, achieving a maximum exergy efficiency of 40.02%, marginally outperforming the baseline R245fa (39.97%) while operating at a significantly lower evaporator pressure (839 kPa vs. 1381 kPa). Although this necessitates a slightly larger heat transfer area, increasing the specific investment cost (SIC) by 1.6% to 5442 USD/kW, the environmental benefits are decisive. Life cycle assessment (LCA) results indicate a 99.8% reduction in the total equivalent warming impact (TEWI) for R1233zd(E) compared to R245fa (dropping from 2926 to 4.6 tons CO 2 -eq). These findings demonstrate that AI-driven optimization can effectively leverage the synergistic relationship between thermodynamic perfection and economic viability, validating R1233zd(E) as a technically superior and environmentally imperative successor for next-generation green ORC plants.
Kılıç et al. (Thu,) studied this question.