DESIGN CONFIGURATION OF AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM FOR WASTE HEAT AND FLUE GAS RECOVERY FROM PETROLEUM PROCESSES

Abstract

Petroleum processing generates large quantities of waste heat (WH) and flue gases (FG) that could be potentially recovered and utilised for electricity production, cost savings, and emission reductions. Current WH/FG recovery systems utilise singular or binary systems comprising organic Rankine cycle (ORC), electric turbo-compounding (ETC), or thermoelectric generation (TEG) technologies. However, these systems are prone to various challenges ranging from low efficiency, power output, and other losses. Therefore, this paper proposes and examines an innovative integrated WH/FG recovery system based on the combined ORC/ETC/TEG configuration. The system analysis and optimisation results showed that the system could potentially recover ~7.2% of the input fuel energy along with a 7.2% reduction in CO2 emissions. Overall, the findings indicate that the proposed ETC- ORC-TEG system could be potentially employed for WH-FG recovery and future utilisation.