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Analysis and simulation of modified

ammonia/water absorption cycle


for power and cooling applications
..............................................................................................................................................................

Dereje S. Ayou1, Rajagopal Saravanan2, Joan Carles Bruno1 and Alberto Coronas1 *
1
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, CREVER Group of Applied Thermal Engineering, Avda.
Paisos Catalans, 26, 43007 Tarragona, Spain; 2Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Institute for Energy Studies, Anna University, Sardar Patel Road, Guindy, Chennai 600025,
India
.............................................................................................................................................
Abstract

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Combined production of power and cooling can improve energy utilization efficiency significantly. In this
paper, a new ammonia/water combined absorption power and cooling cycle is proposed for simultaneous
generation of power and cooling. This cycle is a combination of absorption refrigeration and Kalina power
cycles. The performance of the cycle was evaluated by using several performance-indicating parameters
such as overall thermal efficiency, effective first law efficiency and power/cooling ratio. The influence of
key operating parametersgenerator, sink and evaporator temperatures on the cycle performancewas
investigated. The proposed combined absorption cycle has an energy consumption that is lower by
around 12% than that when using the separate cycles (regenerative ORC and single-effect ammonia/water
absorption refrigeration cycle) at the base-case conditions considered.

Keywords: Kalina power cycle; absorption cycle; combined power and cooling; power/cooling ratio;
effective first law efficiency
*Corresponding author:
alberto.coronas@urv.cat Received 14 January 2013; revised 4 April 2013; accepted 9 April 2013
................................................................................................................................................................................

1 INTRODUCTION expander. It is due to the interesting characteristic a binary


NH3/H2O mixture offers as a working fluid: at constant pressure,
In recent years, the ever increase in global energy demand and NH3-rich vapour can start to condense at temperature below the
greenhouse gas emissions requires an increased use of sustainable saturation temperature of a lower concentration, in NH3, liquid
energy sources such as solar thermal energy, biomass and waste [3]. The use of low heat-source temperatures below 2008C is one
heat energy for power and cooling applications. The use of low- of the characteristics of this cycle. Since this cycle uses the expand-
and medium-temperature thermal sources such as solar thermal er exhaust gases through a cooler transferring sensible heat to the
energy, biomass or biogas to produce refrigeration and mechanic- chilled fluid (such as water), the refrigeration output is relatively
al power is well known; absorption refrigeration cycles and Kalina small. Erickson et al. [4] proposed an NH3/H2O absorption cycle
cycles both using ammonia/water (NH3/H2O) mixture as configuration, which produces power and refrigeration inter-
working fluid are good examples of these systems. Absorption changeably. The dual-function cycle consists of a heat recovery
cycles for mechanical power such as the Kalina cycle consist of unit, desorber, recuperator, absorber, turbine, condenser and
components used also in absorption refrigeration cycles as absor- evaporator. This cycle ensures that the available heat source (waste
bers, generators (desorbers); thus, the combination of both heat) is fully utilized year-round, by converting it to power and/or
systems is not only possible but also presents some advantages refrigeration. Therefore, the capital equipment is utilized effect-
from the technical performance perspective with a higher effi- ively throughout the year. A dual-function cycle derived from a
ciency than the separated production of power and refrigeration, double-effect absorption cycle has been proposed by Ziegler; with
which means a better use of primary energy resources. this cycle, it is estimated to produce 1.2 MW of cooling and
Goswami [1] proposed a new cycle later analysed in Sadrameli 100 kW of power using 1 MW of thermal energy when the cycle
and Goswami [2] intended primarily for power generation while operates as pure absorption refrigeration cycle and pure sorption
simultaneously producing a cooling output. The combined power cycle, respectively [5]. The main advantage of all these con-
cooling output is gained from a heat exchanger following an figurations is the possibility to use low-grade heat sources such as

International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies 2013, 8, i19i26


# The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
doi:10.1093/ijlct/ctt032 i19
D.S. Ayou et al.

solar thermal energy, geothermal heat or waste heat. Other refer- the combination of absorption refrigeration and Kalina power
ences for absorption cycles suitable for simultaneous production cycles. The system operates at two pressure levels, those given by
of power and refrigeration are also available in the literature [6]. the condenser at high pressure and the evaporator at low pres-
Although other types of mixtures (like ammonia/lithium sure. An NH3/H2O mixture, referred as the basic solution
nitrate, ammonia/sodium thiocyanate and organic fluids) can (state 1), is pumped to the system high pressure (state 2) and
be used, NH3/H2O mixture is the commonly used working fluid split into three streams (state 3A, 3B and 3C), which recovers
for combined absorption cycles [6 8]. The main advantage of heat internally before re-mixed (state 7) and enter into the
these non-conventional working fluids in the combined absorp- low-temperature generator (Generator 1). The basic solution is
tion cycles is that they can be used to overcome some of the partially boiled in Generator 1 and separated into liquid (state
drawbacks, such as the costly rectification process, associated 16) and vapour stream (state 9), which is further purified in
with the conventional NH3/H2O working fluid. At the Group of reflux condenser (state 10). The liquid condensate leaving the
Applied Thermal Engineering-CREVER, we have been analysing reflux condenser (state 26) is re-mixed with the basic solution
the thermodynamic performance of the non-conventional leaving Generator 1 (state 8) in the low temperature separator.
working fluids for combined absorption cycles [7]. Then, the liquid solution (state 16) is boiled in the high-
The objective of this paper is to systematically study a modified temperature generator (Generator 2) and separated into vapour
basic NH3/H2O absorption cycle configuration using NH3 as (state 18) and liquid (state 22) streams. The liquid solution is

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refrigerant and H2O as absorbent to simultaneously produce re- throttled to the system low pressure (state 23 24) after exchan-
frigeration and mechanical power using renewable resources such ging heat with basic solution.
as thermal solar energy, biomass or biogas with a single system The vapour from the high-temperature separator begins the
able to cover different demand profiles of power and refrigeration. power sub-cycle process (state 18 19 20 21) by being super-
heated to the highest temperature in the cycle (state 19). It then
expands in the turbine to generate power (state 20). The turbine
exhaust is then cooled in recovery heat exchanger (state 20 21)
2 DESCRIPTION OF THE CYCLE by preheating the part of the basic solution (state 3B 5), and
CONFIGURATION the remaining basic solution is pre-heated by the recovered heat
from the reflux condenser (state 3C 6) and weak solution in the
Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of the cycle configuration solution heat exchanger (state 3A 4). The purified vapour
proposed and analysed in this paper. The cycle is the result of (state 10) begins the refrigeration sub-cycle process (state 10

Figure 1. Modified ammonia/water cycle for combined power and cooling applications.

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Analysis and simulation of modified ammonia/water absorption cycle

11 12 13 14 15) after condensing in the condenser is sub- (n) Optimum split ratio is 0.277 (the split ratio is defined as
cooled (state 11 12) in the condensate pre-cooler by heating the the ratio of the mass flow rate of the basic solution to the
vapour leaving the evaporator (state 14 15) and then throttled recovery heat exchanger to the mass flow rate of the basic
(state 12 13) in the expansion valve before it produces the solution from the absorber).
cooling effect in the evaporator (state 13 14). The three streams (o) Reference environment temperature (for exergy calcula-
(state 15, 21 and 24) mix to regenerate the basic solution (state tion) is 293 K.
25), which is cooled in the absorber to state 1, and this com-
pletes the whole cycle process. Steady-state mass and energy balances for the components of
the cycles are established as follows:
Global mass balance:
X X
3 THERMODYNAMIC MODEL m_ in m
_ out 1
The thermodynamic model for the analysis and simulation of
where m
_ denotes the mass flow rate (kg/s); in, inlet; out, outlet
the cycle is established based on simplifying model assumptions,
Mass balance for ammonia:
energy and mass balances for each component in the cycle.
X X

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Properties of the NH3/H2O mixture are calculated using the cor- _ in zin
m m_ out zout 2
relations from the work of Tillner-Roth and Friend [9]. This
property data source is available in the Engineering Equation where z is the ammonia mass fraction (kg/kg).
Solver EES software as external library [10]. The physical equa- Energy balance:
tions describing the components of the cycle have been estab-
X X
lished using also the EES program. 0Q _ W_ _ in hin 
m m
_ out hout 3

where Q_ is the thermal power (kW); W, _ mechanical power


3.1 Model assumptions
(kW); h, specific enthalpy (kJ/kg).
The following assumptions were used in the thermodynamic
The mechanical power only appears in the energy balance of
model:
the pump and turbine.
(a) The system operated under steady-state steady flow
condition. 3.2 Performance parameters
(b) No pressure changes except that through flow restrictors, Overall thermal efficiency (%), hth, is defined as the ratio
expander (turbine) and pump. between the total useful energy outputs (net mechanical power
(c) State points (Figure 1) at 1, 11, 16, 22 and 26 are saturated output, W _ net , and cooling effect, Q_ eva ) to the external energy
liquid. inputs to the system (generators and super heater thermal power
(d) State points (Figure 1) at 9, 10, and 18 are saturated _ gen2 and Q
inputs are Q_ gen1 , Q _ sh , respectively):
vapour.
(e) Temperature difference (DT) between high-temperature W_ net Q _ eva
hth 4
generator (Generator 2) and low-temperature generator _ gen1 Q
Q _ gen2 Q_ sh
(Generator 1) is 10 K, t8 t17 2 10.
(f ) The saturated liquid and vapour leaving the reflux conden- where W _ net is the mechanical power output from the turbine,
ser are in equilibrium at the reflux condenser temperature reduced by the mechanical power input to the pump. The
and pressure. overall thermal efficiency in Eq. (4) is only based on the first law
(g) Partial vaporization is allowed in the evaporator, as total of thermodynamics and from the concept of cost-benefit ana-
evaporation requires large temperature glide, vapour lysis for energy conversion systems. In this definition, equal
quality q14 0.95. weights are assigned for the thermodynamic quality of the dual
(h) The absorber and condenser exit temperatures are 58C outputs (mechanical power and cooling). This leads to an over-
above the sink temperature. estimation of energy (first law) efficiency, in some cases closer or
(i) Flow restrictors are adiabatic. even higher than the thermodynamic limit [6, 11].
( j) Temperature of the super heater is 450 K. An appropriate and thermodynamically consistent way to
(k) Concentration of the purified vapour leaving the reflux account the quality of the cooling output in the definition of
condenser is 0.999. energy efficiency (can also be in exergy efficiency) produced by
(l) Isentropic pump and turbine efficiencies are 80 and 85%, the combined absorption cycle is to replace the cooling output
respectively. of the cycle by the exergy associated with the cooling output (or
(m) Minimum temperature difference between the cold and divide the cooling output by a COP of a reversible refrigeration
hot streams at the warm end of the reflux condenser is cycle). This is equivalent to replacing the cooling output, in the
10 K. energy efficiency definition, by the minimum mechanical power

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D.S. Ayou et al.

required to produce the same amount of cooling effect by using Table 1. Base-case performance summary for the proposed absorption
a reversible refrigeration cycle. However, in practice, the actual _ 1 1 kg=s basis for
cycle for power and cooling applications (m
(real) power input required to produce the same cooling effect is calculation).
quit high due to the internal and external irreversibilities inher- Useful dual output (kW)
ent in real refrigeration cycle processes. Therefore, in order to Cooling capacity (Q _ eva ) 180.84
weigh the cooling output of the cycle realistically, the exergy Net mechanical power (W _ net ) 22.04
associated with the cooling output must be divided by reason- Thermal power (kW)
Absorber heat duty (Q _ abs ) 451.45
able second law efficiency for a refrigeration cycle, which is
Condenser heat duty (Q_ con ) 181.28
equivalent to dividing the cooling capacity by a practical COP. Low-temperature generator heat input (Q _ gen1 ) 245.24
Accordingly, thermodynamically consistent and realistic energy High-temperature generator heat input (Q _ gen2 ) 216.89
(first law) efficiency is defined as follows. It is referred as effect- Reflux condenser heat duty (Q _ rec ) 171.15
ive first law efficiency by Vijayaraghavan et al. [11]. Recovery heat exchanger heat duty (Q _ rhx ) 48.66
Condensate pre-cooler heat duty (Q_ cpc ) 21.66
Solution heat exchanger heat duty (Q _ shx ) 255.00
W_ net Ex
_ eva =href
hI;eff 5 Superheater heat input (Q _ sh ) 11.80
_Qgen1 Q_ gen2 Q _ sh Total driving heat input (Q _ in ) 473.93

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Mechanical power (kW)
Turbine (W _ turbine ) 23.61
where hI,eff (%) is the effective first law efficiency and href is the _ pump )
Solution pump (W 1.57
second law efficiency for vapour compression refrigeration cycle Exergy flow (kW)
(which is assumed to be 40% in this work [11, 12]). Cooling exergy output (Ex _ eva ) 20.82
Performance indicator
Overall thermal efficiency hth (%) 42.81
Effective first law efficiency hI;eff (%) 15.64
Power/cooling ratio R (-) 0.122

Table 2. The base-case stream characteristics for the proposed absorption


cycle.
State point t (8C) p (kPa) z (kg/kg) m
_ (kg/s) h (kJ/kg) s (kJ/kg K)

1 35.0 285 0.414 1 53.14 0.930


2 35.2 1349 0.414 1 54.72 0.931
3A 35.2 1349 0.414 0.359 54.72 0.931
3B 35.2 1349 0.414 0.277 54.72 0.931
3C 35.2 1349 0.414 0.364 54.72 0.931
4 119.4 1349 0.414 0.359 764.69 2.897
Figure 2. The effect of generator temperature on cycle useful outputs.
5 73.1 1349 0.414 0.277 230.64 1.468
6 103.6 1349 0.414 0.364 524.63 2.273
7 104.0 1349 0.414 1 529.53 2.286
8 120.0 1349 0.414 1 774.77 2.922
9 113.6 1349 0.911 0.238 1915.49 6.429
10 46.9 1349 0.999 0.156 1670.18 5.805
11 35.0 1349 0.999 0.156 508.05 2.038
12 5.8 1349 0.999 0.156 369.21 1.565
13 210.5 285 0.999 0.156 369.21 1.580
14 210.0 285 0.999 0.156 1528.51 5.992
15 19.9 285 0.999 0.156 1667.35 6.503
16 113.6 1349 0.306 0.844 406.50 1.852
17 130.0 1349 0.306 0.844 663.47 2.502
18 130.0 1349 0.830 0.099 2016.90 6.583
19 177.0 1349 0.830 0.099 2136.29 6.864
20 82.4 285 0.830 0.099 1897.47 6.982
21 52.0 285 0.830 0.099 1405.33 5.546
22 130.0 1349 0.236 0.745 483.88 1.961
23 54.8 1349 0.236 0.745 141.66 1.022
24 55.0 285 0.236 0.745 141.66 1.026
25 61.6 285 0.414 1 504.60 2.337
Figure 3. The effect of generator temperature on cycle efficiencies and power/
26 46.9 1349 0.744 0.082 298.96 1.678
cooling ratio.

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Analysis and simulation of modified ammonia/water absorption cycle

The exergy associated with the cooling (kW), Ex_ eva , is calcu- temperature on the system performance is evaluated for a tem-
lated as the exergy change across the evaporator [12]: perature range between 20 and 408C. The evaporator tempera-
ture is also varied between 210 and 108C. A 1 kg/s of basic
_ eva m
Ex _ 13 h13  h14  T0 s13  s14  6 solution through the pump is taken as a basis for calculation. To
account the quality of the useful outputs of the combined cycle
where T0 is the reference (or dead state) temperature (K); s, spe- (mechanical power and cooling effect), effective first law effi-
cific entropy (kJ/kg K). ciency of the system is calculated at different generator, sink and
Power/cooling ratio, R, is defined as the ratio of the net mech- evaporator temperatures. The assumed reference environment
anical power output of the system per the cooling effect pro- temperature (T0 293 K) was considered.
duced in the evaporator: The influence of generator temperature on the cycle useful
_ net output such as power produced, cooling capacity, overall
W
R 7 thermal efficiency, effective first law efficiency and power/
Q_ eva cooling ratio is shown above in Figures 2 and 3, respectively. The
cycle has an optimum value for the overall thermal efficiency
around the generator temperature of 1308C at the baseline case
(tabs tcon 358C and teva 2108C) considered in the cycle

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4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION simulation. The base case performance summary for the pro-
posed absorption cycle for power and cooling applications
The thermodynamic performance evaluation of the proposed is shown above in Table 1, and the corresponding stream
combined absorption cycle is performed for a generator tem- characteristics for the proposed absorption cycle is provided
perature (t17) between 105 and 1508C. The effect of the sink above in Table 2. For a particular operating condition, there is
a minimum generator temperature to operate the cycle.

Figure 5. The effect of DT on (a) cycle useful outputs (mechanical power and
Figure 4. The effect of generator temperature on cycle useful outputs at several cooling) and (b) cycle efficiencies and power/cooling ratio at the base-case
evaporator temperatures: (a) cooling capacity; (b) net power output. condition.

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D.S. Ayou et al.

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Figure 6. The effect of the sink temperature on (a) cycle useful outputs
(mechanical power and cooling) and (b) cycle efficiencies at several generator
temperatures. Figure 7. The effect of the evaporator temperature on (a) cycle useful outputs
(mechanical power and cooling) and (b) cycle efficiencies at several sink
temperatures.
Accordingly, there is a corresponding minimum heat source
temperature to fire the system. For the considered baseline case,
the generator temperature must be greater than 1008C. When and power/cooling ratio at the base-case condition is shown in
the generator temperature increases from 105 to 1508C, the net Figure 5. As the DT increases, the amount of heat supplied at
power output cooling capacity, overall thermal and effective first high-temperature generator also increases whereas the heat sup-
law efficiencies are also increased due to higher heat input. plied in the low-temperature generator decreases, leading to
As expected, the cooling capacity of the cycle increases and higher power output and lower cooling capacity. From the
net power out decreases with the increase in evaporator tem- figures, it is observed that there is an optimum DT where both
perature from 210 to 108C (Figure 4). Since the low pressure of overall thermal efficiency and effective first law efficiency is
the system increases as the evaporator temperature increases, the maximum at the base-case condition.
turbine pressure ratio decreases as a result; the mechanical As seen from Figure 6a, the cooling capacity of the cycle
power output of the cycle decreases. Even though the specific en- decreases significantly as the sink temperature increases from 20
thalpy difference across the evaporator decreases the cooling to 408C. Since the high pressure of the system increases as the
capacity of the cycle increases because the mass flow rate of the sink temperature increases, the amount of vapour desorbed (for
rectified vapour increases at a faster rate than the decrease in the constant generator temperature) in both generators decreases.
specific enthalpy difference across the evaporator. The generator But, the specific enthalpy difference across the turbine increases,
temperature influence on the power output at higher evaporator consequently the net power output shows slight variation with
temperature has less compared with that of the lower evaporator an optimum value around 308C. The influence of sink tempera-
temperature. ture on the overall thermal efficiency has a higher compared
The effect of DT (temperature difference between high- with the effective first law efficiency due the marginal variation
temperature generatorGenerator 2 and low-temperature gen- in the net power output compared with the cooling capacity
eratorGenerator 1) on cycle useful outputs, cycle efficiencies (Figure 6b).

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Analysis and simulation of modified ammonia/water absorption cycle

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Figure 9. Schematic diagram of regenerative organic Rankine cycle.

Table 3. Inputs and assumptionsfor regenerative organic Rankine cycle.


Turbine inlet temperature (8C) 177
System high pressure (kPa) 1349
System low pressure (kPa) 285
Net mechanical power output (kW) 22.04
Working fluid: n-Pentene
Steady-state steady flow condition
No pressure changes except through turbine and pump
State point 7 (Figure 9) is saturated liquid
Degree of subcooling at the exit of the condenser (state point 4,
Figure 9) is 58C
Minimum temperature difference at the cold end of the regenerator is 108C
Figure 8. The effect of the expander (turbine) isentropic efficiency on (a) cycle Isentropic pump and turbine efficiencies are 80 and 85%, respectively
useful outputs (mechanical power and cooling) and (b) cycle efficiencies and
power/cooling ratio at the base-case condition.

The modified and analysed combined power and cooling


The variation of the net power output, cooling capacity, cycle is compared with other optional systems for separate pro-
overall thermal efficiency and effective first law efficiency with duction of power (using regenerative organic Rankine cycle with
sink and evaporator temperatures at the base-case condition is n-Pentane as working fluid) and refrigeration (single-stage NH3/
illustrated in Figure 7. In contrary to the overall thermal effi- H2O absorption refrigeration cycle) having the same power and
ciency of the cycle shown in Figure 7b, the cycle shows higher ef- cooling capacity. The regenerative organic Rankine cycle used in
fective first law efficiency at lower evaporator temperature the analysis is shown in Figure 9, and the input parameters and
(suitable for refrigeration application). A similar trend is assumptions made are given in Table 3. The simulation result at
observed for the effect of sink temperature on overall thermal the base line condition is presented in Table 4. The heat input
and effective first law efficiencies. required for the cycle to produce the same amount of power
Figure 8 illustrates the effect of the expander (turbine) isen- output, 22.04 kW, is around 160 kW yielding the thermal effi-
tropic efficiency on cycle useful outputs, cycle efficiencies and ciency of 13.78%. For separate production of cooling capacity of
power/cooling ratio at the base-case condition. It is found that 180.84 kW at 2108C evaporator temperature with a cycle of
the turbine efficiency has higher impact on the net power COP of 0.48, the driving heat input required for single-effect
output and power/cooling ratio compared with other perform- ammonia absorption refrigeration system is 376.75 kW. Total
ance parameters as expected. It is found that at the optimum driving heat input required for the separate production of power
condition of generator temperature at 1308C, sink temperature and refrigeration is 536.66 kW. Therefore, the proposed com-
of 308C, evaporator temperature of about 2108C, a net power bined absorption cycle has an energy consumption that is lower
output of 22.04 kW and cooling capacity of 180.84 kW could be by around 12% than that when using the separate cycles (regen-
attained with the overall thermal and effective first law efficien- erative ORC and single-effect ammonia/water absorption re-
cies of the combined cycle 42.81 and 15.64%, respectively. frigeration cycle) at the base-case conditions considered.

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D.S. Ayou et al.

Table 4. Simulation results of Regenerative Organic Rankin Cycle. FUNDING


Thermal power (kW)
Condenser heat duty (Q _ con ) 137.87 This research project was financially supported by the Spanish
Evaporator heat input (Q_ eva ) 93.89 Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (ENE2009-14177)
Preheater heat input (Q _ prehe ) 29.25 and the Catalan Government (2009SGR-33).
Regenerator heat duty (Q _ reg ) 52.40
Super heater heat input (Q _ sh ) 36.77
Total driving heat input (Q _ in;ORC ) 159.91 REFERENCES
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Turbine (W _ turbine ) 22.94
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