Selection of cooling fluid for an organic Rankine cycle unit recovering heat on a container ship sailing in the Arctic region
Journal article, 2017

As Arctic sea ice coverage declines it is expected that marine traffic could increase in this northern region due to shorter routes. Navigating in the Arctic offers opportunities and challenges for waste heat recovery systems (WHRS). Lower temperatures require larger heating power on board, hence a larger demand for waste heat usage, to cover services and maintaining on board spaces temperatures. However, a lower heat rejection temperature increases the WHRS thermal efficiency. The air temperature for the Arctic route selected is colder than that of the seawater, opening the opportunity of having air as coolant. This paper explores the use of two different coolants, air and seawater, for an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) unit using the available waste heat in the scavenge air system of a container ship navigating in Arctic Circle. Using a two-step single objective optimisation process, detailed models of air and seawater heat exchangers are evaluated as the WHRS condensers. The results suggest that an ORC unit using R1233zd(E) as its working fluid coupled with seawater as its coolant is the preferable option to reduce CO2 emissions. Using the ambient air as the coolant while a less effective option could be cheaper to instal

Organic Rankine cycle Arctic shipping Waste heat recovery Condensers CO2 emissions

Author

Santiago Suárezde la Fuente

University College London (UCL)

Ulrik Larsen

Chalmers, Shipping and Marine Technology, Maritime Environmental Sciences

L. Pierobon

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Martin R. Kærn

Chalmers, Shipping and Marine Technology, Marine Technology

Fredrik Haglind

Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

Alistair Greig

University College London (UCL)

Energy

0360-5442 (ISSN)

Vol. 141 975-990

Areas of Advance

Transport

Energy

Subject Categories

Energy Engineering

Vehicle Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.energy.2017.09.125

More information

Latest update

4/6/2022 5