A techno-economic survey on high- to low-temperature waste heat recovery cycles for UK glass sector

Abstract

Three heat recovery cycles are studied to recover the waste heat from the exhaust gas outlet of a glass-melting furnace. To determine the viability and potential dangers based on techno-economic aspects, three fundamental recovery cycles for the exhaust gas from UK glass melting furnaces are examined. The parametric thermodynamic and techno-economic study reveals the effects of the key parameters: The condenser temperature of the ORC cycle, the pressure ratio of the sCO2 cycle, and the flash pressure of the Kalina cycle. Three thermodynamic parameters (Power production, energy, and exergy efficiency), as well as five techno-economic parameters (LCOE, NPV, PP, IRR, and MOIC), have been studied with varying key factors. The results showed that ORC is the best possible option for low-temperature waste exhaust gases as it is not as expensive as other ones, while super-critical CO2 has the highest power production to produce power from high-temperature waste heat sources. Even though ORC’s payback period is 10% longer than sCO2‘s, Comparing the IRR, NPV, and MOIC of the ORC cycle to those of the sCO2 cycle, the differences are just 8.3%, 5.3%, and 8.2% lower.