Search results for " exergy"
showing 10 items of 27 documents
Ecological indicators – Schrödinger Ratio
2008
Exergy analysis of electrodialysis for water desalination: Influence of irreversibility sources
2022
The increasing freshwater demand is pushing the development and adoption of desalination technologies. In this framework, electrodialysis has a consolidated role in brackish water desalination, but to make it competitive with other technologies for the desalination of more concentrated solutions (e.g., seawater), the specific energy consumption should be reduced. Exergy analysis provides a useful tool for determining the contribution of each thermodynamic inefficiencies on the process efficiency and the specific energy consumption. In this regard, this paper presents an exergy analysis of the electrodialysis process. A 1-D model is used for evaluating the performance of industrial-scale sys…
Zooming on the exergetic cost formation process of a Multiple-Effects-Evaporation (MEE) desalination plant
2009
In this paper an advanced energetic and thermoeconomic analysis of a Multiple Effect Evaporation (MEE) process is proposed. Starting from the thermochemical fundamentals of desalination processes, a minimum theoretical work of separation is introduced, to be used as reference condition to assess the efficiency of desalination units. The attention is then focused on a forward feed MEE configuration; by abandoning the usual perspective oriented to analyse the system at an “overall plant” level, a zooming strategy is proposed to understand in depth the margins for systems’ improvement. Focusing on a single effect, different subprocesses and their mutual interactions are correctly recognized to…
Exergy analysis and thermoeconomic cost accounting of a CHP steam cycle integrated with MED-TVC desalination
2016
In this paper exergy analysis and thermoeconomic cost accounting of a CHP steam cycle integrated with MED-TVC plant is performed; the purpose is to show how this methodology provides a rational criterion to allocate production costs on electricity and freshwater. After a brief overview on methodology and a description of reference plant, exergy analysis is carried out in order to calculate exergy flows and plant exergetic performance. A detailed description of the adopted thermoeconomic model is given. Cost accounting is performed considering two scenarios: in the first, the concentrated brine is disposed back to sea, thus being its exergy content definitively wasted; in the second, convers…
On Thermoeconomic Diagnosis of a Fouled Direct Expansion Coil: Effects of Induced Malfunctions on Quantitative Performance of the Diagnostic Technique
2017
Thermoeconomic diagnosis represents a promising technique for the detection of common faults in refrigeration systems, which are responsible of degradation in their energetic performance. Recently, the authors have carried out a sensitivity analysis of the performance of this method to the thermodynamic conditions of inlet air and to the geometry of the direct expansion coil, in case of degradation induced by evaporator fouling. The analysis showed that the method is able to detect this fault, but sometimes its quantitative assessments are not satisfactory. In order to understand more in-depth the origin of such results and identify margins for refinement of the technique, this paper is aim…
Assessing the Robustness of Thermoeconomic Diagnosis of Fouled Evaporators: Sensitivity Analysis of the Exergetic Performance of Direct Expansion Coi…
2016
Thermoeconomic diagnosis of refrigeration systems is a pioneering approach to the diagnosis of malfunctions, which has been recently proven to achieve good performances for the detection of specific faults. Being an exergy-based diagnostic technique, its performance is influenced by the trends of exergy functions in the “design” and “abnormal” conditions. In this paper the sensitivity of performance of thermoeconomic diagnosis in detecting a fouled direct expansion coil and quantifying the additional consumption it induces is investigated; this fault is critical due to the simultaneous air cooling and dehumidification occurring in the coil, that induce variations in both the chemical and th…
Introducing exergy analysis in life cycle assessment: A case study
2018
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology for assessing the potential environmental aspects associated with a product or service along its life cycle. However, in the case of energy technologies, it is suggested that the LCA of a product encompasses also further aspects other than environmental aspects and primary energy calculations. In particular, to optimize the reduction of raw materials during the whole life cycle, it is important to introduce the assessment of the irreversibility, applying the exergy analysis. In this paper, an integrated approach of exergy analysis and LCA is proposed, developing the Life-cycle quality index able to suggest potential exergy inefficiencies and the …
Application of advanced thermodynamics, thermoeconomics and exergy costing to a Multiple Effect Distillation plant: In-depth analysis of cost formati…
2015
Abstract The high thermal energy consumption per m3 fresh water is one of the main barriers to the spread of thermally driven desalination processes and has limited their use to applications in countries with high reserves of fossil fuels or to specific technological solutions like dual purpose cogeneration plants and solar desalination systems. Being energy conversion efficiency a major issue to improve the performance of thermally driven desalination plants, thermoeconomic analysis has been attracting the efforts of researchers for the identification of margins for process improvement. In this paper a rigorous exergy and thermoeconomic analysis is presented for an 8 effect forward feed Mu…
On thermoeconomics of energy systems at variable load conditions: integrated optimization of plant design and operation
2007
Abstract Thermoeconomics has been assuming a growing role among the disciplines oriented to the analysis of energy systems, its different methodologies allowing solution of problems in the fields of cost accounting, plant design optimisation and diagnostic of malfunctions. However, the thermoeconomic methodologies as such are particularly appropriate to analyse large industrial systems at steady or quasi-steady operation, but they can be hardly applied to small to medium scale units operating in unsteady conditions to cover a variable energy demand. In this paper, the fundamentals of thermoeconomics for systems operated at variable load are discussed, examining the cost formation process an…
Thermoeconomic optimization of a renewable polygeneration system serving a small isolated community
2015
During the last years, special attention has been paid to renewable polygeneration technologies, able of simultaneously producing thermal, cooling, electrical energy and desalinated water from seawater. This paper focuses on an innovative polygeneration system driven by renewable energy sources, including the following technologies: hybrid photovoltaic/thermal collectors, concentrating parabolic trough (CPVT), a biomass heater, a single-stage absorption chiller and a multiple-effect distillation desalination system. The system is designed to cover the base load of an isolated small community. In previous papers, the dynamic simulation model about plant operation is discussed. In this paper,…