Technical assessment of novel organic Rankine cycle driven cascade refrigeration system using environmental friendly...

Hydrocarbons are a promising working fluid for organic Rankine cycles and refrigeration systems that have gained increasing attention in recent decades as a replacement for the currently used higher global warming potential fluids. A novel standalone cascade refrigeration system (CRS) has been developed in this study for simultaneous ultra-low temperature cooling and heating production to medical applications most suitable for rural and power outages. Using the energy utilization factor (EUF) metrics, neopentane was chosen as the working fluid for the organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system among the selected hydrocarbon (HC) refrigerants. The standalone ORC-CRS system performance was investigated in terms of cooling and heating capacity, EUF, exergy, and environmental metrics by varying both ORC and CRS key temperature parameters. The exergy destruction of individual components was evaluated, and it was found that the ORC evaporator has the highest exergy destruction, followed by the expander. The highest EUF and exergy efficiency for a combined ORC-CRS system was about 0.64 and 38%. The maximum cooling and heating capacity of novel standalone CRS system was achieved by 70 kW and 225 kW respectively at a typical operating condition. At a higher ORC evaporation temperature, the exergy efficiency of the ORC-CRS system is decreased, leading to reduction in SI. The standalone ORC-CRS system at ORC evaporator temperature of 150 °C achieved the maximum CO₂ emission tax savings of $ 6.4 × 10⁷ over a 15-year lifetime period. The total annualized cost index of the combined cooling heating system is in the range between 35 and 60 $/h for the variable operating condition. Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) method was used to conduct the multi-objective optimization analysis, and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method used to found the optimal point, which had the following values of TAC 42.22 $/h and exergy efficiency was around 46.10%.