Preliminary Study on the Integration of Organic Rankine Cycle with the Low-Temperature Heating Reactor

Abstract

Nuclear heating reactor operates at a low temperature (usually below 200 ℃), which can be used for heating or combined with power generation, desalination and other devices. The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is often used for the power generation of low temperature heat sources such as industrial waste heat and geothermal energy. However, there has been little research focused on nuclear energy. Consequently, this paper introduces a novel system that integrates a nuclear heating reactor with the ORC. The ORC system selects n-heptane as the working medium, which is a dry working fluid with relatively high critical temperature and excellent thermodynamic properties. In this paper, ASPEN PLUS software is used to model the ORC in detail, and the thermal performance of the recuperative Rankine cycle is studied. In this study, we focus on optimizing the performance of ORC system by adjusting two key parameters: the evaporation pressure and the condensing pressure. The objectives are to maximize the net output work, thermal efficiency, and exergy efficiency. Additionally, we analyze the impact of several critical parameters on the system's overall performance.