Performance assessment of steam Rankine cycle and sCO2 Brayton cycle for waste heat recovery in a cement plant: A comparative study for supercritical fluids

The main objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of a waste heat recovery (WHR) closed Brayton cycle (BC) working with supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO₂). For this aim, an actual WHR steam Rankine cycle (RC) in a cement plant was evaluated thermodynamically. After, a sCO₂-BC was theoretically adapted to the actual WHR system for the performance assessment. Both systems were analyzed comparatively in terms of energy and exergy. According to the results, the sCO₂-BC showed higher performance than the actual steam RC with a net electricity generation of 9363 kW where it was calculated as 8275 kW for the actual cycle. In addition, the energy efficiencies were found to be 27.6% and 24.18% where the exergy efficiencies were calculated as 58.22% and 51.39% for sCO₂-BC and steam RC, respectively. In the following part of the study, the closed BC was examined for different supercritical working fluids, namely, CO₂, pentafluoroethane (R125), fluoromethane (R41), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). Parametrical analyses were conducted to determine the effects of the system parameters such as turbine inlet temperature, compressor inlet temperature, and pressure ratio on the cycle performance. The simulation results of the comparative study showed that, among the supercritical fluids, the CO₂ demonstrated a higher performance for the closed BC with an energy efficiency of 27.9% followed by R41, SF6, and R125. As a result, the utilization of sCO₂-BC for WHR can be sustainably adapted and extended for environmentally friendly energy generation.