Working Fluid Selection for Electricity Production Using Organic Rankine Cycle with Heat Source Temperature of 100°C

Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) generates electricity at low temperature heat sources; therefore, this system produces a low performance. Working fluid selection is important to determine a better ORC system performance. This paper discusses working fluid selection for electricity production using ORC system with heat source temperature of 100°C. The analysis was carried out by varying organic working fluid with constant temperature and volume flow rate of the heat source. R123, R245fa, R141b, R227ea, R134a and n-pentane are selected to be analyzed as organic working fluid. All of the selected working fluid are analyzed through energy and exergy balance to determine each of their performances. Net power and thermal efficiency are performance result from energy balance analysis, while exergy balance analyzes exergy input and exergy efficiency as a performance result. The analysis shows that R141b as isentropic fluid type results in the highest performance, and R227ea as wet (almost isentropic) fluid type obtains the lowest performance.