Organic Working Fluids for a Combined Power and Cooling Cycle

A new thermodynamic cycle has been developed for the simultaneous production of power and cooling from low temperature heat sources. The proposed cycle combines the Rankine and absorption refrigeration cycles, providing power and cooling as useful outputs. Initial studies were performed with an ammonia-water mixture as the working fluid in the cycle. This work extends the application of the cycle to working fluids consisting of organic fluid mixtures. Organic working fluids have been used successfully in geothermal power plants, as working fluids in Rankine cycles. An advantage of using organic working fluids is that the industry has experience with building turbines for these fluids. A commercially available optimization program has been used to maximize the thermodynamic performance of the cycle. The advantages and disadvantages of using organic fluid mixtures as opposed to an ammonia-water mixture are discussed. It is found that thermodynamic efficiencies achievable with organic fluid mixtures, under optimum conditions, are lower than those obtained with ammonia-water mixtures. Further, the refrigeration temperatures achievable using organic fluid mixtures are higher than those using ammonia-water mixtures.