Comparison Of The ORC And The PEORC For Low-Temperature Industrial Waste Heat Exploitation

In this paper, the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and the Partially Evaporated Organic Rankine Cycle (PEORC) were compared for low-temperature waste heat recovery, with a particular focus on industrial applications.Numerical models of the two power cycles were developed, while a dedicated two-phase expansion model simulating the performance of an industrial expander in the twophase region was applied to estimate accurately the efficiency of the PEORC.Different WFs, temperatures of the heat source, and waste heat transfer rates were considered for a complete mapping of the power cycles' efficiency.The simulations indicate that the PEORC efficiency is highly dependent on the performance of the two-phase expander, with vapor quality at the evaporator outlet identified as the most crucial operating parameter.The comparison between the two power cycle architectures reveals that the PEORC performs consistently better, achieving thermal efficiencies between 2.28% and 7.75%, whereas, for identical operating conditions, the respective values for the ORC are in the range of 1.25% to 7.13%.