Seal of excellence I IE-E
Exploit your heat waste and transform it into Electricity
Project Scope
The project aims to create a 20kWe nominal power cycle that will be connected to a biogas ICE and operates at an upper temperature limit slightly lower than the temperature of the cooling water of the ICE (~75-80°C) offering the market a new efficient and cost-effective product for converting low-temperature heat into power.
Key project Details
The market evaluation, which was carried out in a previous research project, showed that the most suitable and economically efficient market for importing the product is that of biogas. More specifically, the company will develop, design, test and evaluate an improved version of an ORC approaching the isothermal expansion, which will recover heat from the Internal Combustion Engine’s (ICE) cooling system of biogas plants, to produce additional electricity. The ORC system uses the heat of the exhaust gases, while the condensing thermal energy of the ORC is used for heating, as it can provide sufficient heat load for this purpose. A fraction of the heat from the cooling circuit of the machine is driven to the crucible to maintain fermentation. The main innovation of the IE-E unit is that the expansion takes place in a process that tends to approach isothermal, in contrast to conventional technologies where the process of expansion is ideally an isentropic process. As is well known from thermodynamics, perfect isothermal expansion produces more work than isentropic, between the same operating limits. Based on this principle, it is estimated that a fairly improved thermal efficiency rate (of 20%) can be achieved compared to conventional ORC, at a comparable cost as technological interventions are limited to modify a single component of the conventional ORC system, the expander.In a conventional biogas power plant, the heat dissipated by ICE cooling water at temperatures up to 90 oC can be used for heating (co-production of electricity and heat) or in the case that there is no demand for it to be completely rejected to the environment (eg cooling tower). In the proposed configuration, the IE-E unit recovers the rejected heat by converting a percentage of it into electrical power, while the rest is available either to meet thermal needs or to improve its efficiency. Compared to a conventional ORC system, IE-E presents the following advantages:
- increased thermal efficiency
- ability to utilize condensing heat. In the corresponding conventional ORC the condensing temperature ranges at low values which are unsuitable for utilization of the condensing heat.
Psyctotherm’s innovative Isothermal
Expansion Engine (IE-E) project marks a significant advancement in
heat-to-power conversion technology. Unlike traditional Organic Rankine Cycle
(ORC) engines, which rely on adiabatic expansion, the IE-E employs an
isothermal expansion process. By maintaining high heat fluxes during expansion,
a 20 kWe engine was developed, achieving a notable efficiency increase of 1-2%
over conventional ORC systems. Developed and experimentally tested at the
Agricultural University of Athens, the IE-E engine demonstrates a
groundbreaking approach that combines enhanced efficiency with cost-effectiveness,
making it a competitive and sustainable solution for converting waste heat into
power. This project brings to market an innovative, high-performance heat
recovery engine, setting new standards in the energy sector.
Co-Funded by the European Union
