BINARY VAPOUR CYCLE

Thermal efficiency of Rankine cycle can be increased by:

1) Increasing the average temperature of heat addition.
2) Decreasing the average temperature of heat rejection.
Maximum temperature of the cycle is limited by practical considerations. For steam as a
working fluid, the following difficulties arise at maximum temperature.
1) Critical temperature of steam is equal to 3740 C and critical pressure is 221.2 bar. It is not
possible to work at this pressure.
2) Latent heat of vaporization decreases as the pressure increases.
3) If high pressure steam is expanded, high degree of moisture content will be present at the
end of process.
The minimum temperature of the cycle is usually limited to natural water temperature of 250
C. At this temperature, the saturation pressure of water will be 0.0318 bar. It means that the
condenser has to work at vacuum. This is very difficult.
So, ideal working fluid for Rankine cycle should fulfill the following requirements.
1) Reasonable saturation pressure at maximum temperature.
2) Steep saturated vapor line to minimize moisture problem.
3) Saturation pressure higher than atmospheric at minimum temperature.
4) Low liquid specific heat so that most of the heat is added at maximum temperature.
5) Non-toxic and non-corrosive.
All the above requirements are not met by any single working fluid. In binary cycle two
working fluids are used in order to obtain good results. Mercury and steam are most
commonly used working fluids. Saturation pressure and saturation temperature of mercury is
20.6 bar and 5400 C at critical point.
A Binary Vapour Rankine Power Cycle consists of two separate Rankine vapour Power
Cycles that use different working fluids. The two cycles only interact through a shared heat
exchanger. In this HEX, the sub-cooled liquid leaving the pump in the low-temperature
cycle absorbs heat from the turbine effluent of the high-temperature cycle. If necessary,
the working fluid in the low-temperature cycle can receive additional heat from
the boiler before entering the low-temperature turbine.
HIGH TEMPERATURE RANKINE
CYCLE
1-2: Boiler - Heat added at constant pressure
2-3: Turbine #1 - Isentropic expansion.
3-4: HEX - Heat rejected at constant pressure
4-1: Pump #1 - Isentropic compression.
LOW TEMPERATURE RANKINE
CYCLE
5-6: Turbine #2 - Isentropic expansion
6-7: Condenser #2 - Heat rejected at constant
pressure.
7-8: Pump #2- Isentropic compression
8-9: HEX - Heat rejected at constant pressure.
9-5: Boiler - Heat added at constant pressure.

Fig: line diagram of binary vapour cycle

A binary vapor power cycle is two power cycles working together.

The high-temperature cycle absorbs heat from the hot reservoir and the low-temperature
cycle rejects heat to the cold reservoir.
The interesting part is that the heat rejected
from the high-temperature cycle, QC1 is used as
the heat INPUT to the low-temperature cycle,
QH2.
The transfer of heat out of the high-temperature
working fluid and into the low temperature
working fluid takes place in a heat exchanger,
labeled “HEX” in my diagram.
If the flow rates of the two working fluids are
controlled properly, the low-temperature cycle
does not need to receive heat from the boiler.
Otherwise, the low temperature working fluid
can be heated further in the boiler. Fig: T-S diagram of binary vapour cycle
The key is that the working fluids in the two cycles CANNOT be the same.
If the two working fluids were the same, there would be no advantage to using a binary vapor
cycle.

MERCURY-STEAM BINARY VAPOUR CYCLE

Mercury-steam binary vapour cycle Thermodynamic cycle for mercury-steam

binary vapour cycle

Mercury has comparatively small saturation pressures at high temperature values but due to
excessively low pressure values and large specific volume values at low temperatures it
cannot be used alone as working fluid. Mercury also does not wet the surface in contact so
there is inefficient heat transfer although 0.002% of solution of magnesium and potassium is
added to give it wetting property of steel.
Steam is used with mercury for overcoming some limitations of mercury. Thus in
combination of mercury-steam, the mercury is used for high pressures while steam is used for
low pressure region. Layout for mercury-steam binary vapour cycle is shown on Fig.along
with it’s depiction on T-S diagram. Here, mercury vapour are generated in mercury boiler and
sent for expansion in mercury turbine and expanded fluid leaves turbine and enters into
condenser. From condenser the mercury condensate is pumped back into the mercury boiler.
In mercury condenser the water is used for extracting heat from mercury so as to condense it.
The amount of heat liberated during condensation of mercury is too large to evaporate the
water entering mercury condenser. Thus, mercury condenser also acts as steam boiler. For
superheating of steam an auxiliary boiler may be employed or superheating may be realized
in the mercury boiler itself.

ADVANTAGES OF BINARY VAPOUR CYCLE

1. moderate vapour pressure at high temperature. At 5400C the pressure is less than 14 bar.
2.Very stable.
3.Liquid mercury has high density. The liquid and vapour separation is easy.
4.Feeding back to boiler by hydrostatic head is easy.
5.The specific heat of mercury is 0.13kj/ kg-k. Liquid line is steep making cycle close to
Carnot cycle.
6.Specic enthalpy of mercury is low, thus, resulting low jet velocity in mercury turbine.
7.Thermal efficiency is higher than Rankine steam cycle.

DISADVANTAGES OF BINARY VAPOUR CYCLE

1.Toxic in nature.
2.High cost and limited supply.
3.Tendency to leak through joints,cracks ect.
4.Latent heat is very low, thus require, large amount of mercury for same utilization.
5.Does not wet surface, thus,poor heat transfer.

HEAT OF REACTION
The heat of reaction which is also known as Enthalpy of Reaction is the change in
the enthalpy of a particular chemical reaction that occurs at a constant pressure. It
is the thermodynamic unit of measurement applied in calculating the amount of
energy per mole either released or produced in a reaction.
Heat of a chemical reaction can therefore be defined as the heat evolved in the
surroundings or absorbed when the reaction takes place at constant pressure and
temperature. The amount of heat absorbed or evolved is measured in Joule (J).
Mostly heat transfer takes place between the reacting system as one medium an d
surrounding as the other in chemical reactions.
Please note that the amount of heat energy before and after the chemical change
remains same. In other words, the heat lost or gained in a reacting system is equal
to heat lost or gained in the surrounding.
Therefore, the heat of reaction formula is given by
Q = mcΔT
Where,
m is the mass of the medium,
c is the specific heat capacity of the medium,
ΔT is the difference in temperature of the medium.
Fluidized bed combustion (FBC) is a combustion technology used to burn solid fuels.
In its most basic form, fuel particles are suspended in a hot, bubbling fluidity bed of ash and
other particulate materials (sand, limestone etc.) through which jets of air are blown to
provide the oxygen required for combustion or gasification. The resultant fast and intimate
mixing of gas and solids promotes rapid heat transfer and chemical reactions within the bed.
FBC plants are capable of burning a variety of low-grade solid fuels, including most types of
coal and woody biomass, at high efficiency and without the necessity for expensive fuel
preparation (e.g., pulverising). In addition, for any given thermal duty, FBCs are smaller than
the equivalent conventional furnace, so may offer significant advantages over the latter in
terms of cost and flexibility.
Fluidized bed combustion is used in both fire tube and water tube boilers but the water tube
boiler offers advantage of greater flexibility in design of furnace shape and allowing for
greater freeboard in which entrained particles can drop back into bed. Air velocity is
generally limited to 2.5 m/s as beyond this the possibility of incomplete combustion
increases.
FBC reduces the amount of sulfur emitted in the form of SOx emissions. Limestone is used to
precipitate out sulfate during combustion, which also allows more efficient heat transfer from
the boiler to the apparatus used to capture the heat energy (usually water tubes). The heated
precipitate coming in direct contact with the tubes (heating by conduction) increases the
efficiency. Since this allows coal plants to burn at cooler temperatures, less NOx is also
emitted. However, burning at low temperatures also causes increased polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbon emissions. FBC boilers can burn fuels other than coal, and the lower
temperatures of combustion (800 °C / 1500 °F) have other added benefits as well.
There are two reasons for the rapid increase of FBC in combustors. First, the liberty of choice
in respect of fuels in general, not only the possibility of using fuels which are difficult to burn
using other technologies, is an important advantage of fluidized bed combustion. The second
reason, which has become increasingly important, is the possibility of achieving, during
combustion, a low emission of nitric oxides and the possibility of removing sulfur in a simple
manner by using limestone as bed material.
Fluidized-bed combustion evolved from efforts to find a combustion process able to control
pollutant emissions without external emission controls (such as scrubbers-flue gas
desulfurization). The technology burns fuel at temperatures of 1,400 to 1,700 °F (750-900
°C), well below the threshold where nitrogen oxides form (at approximately 2,500 °F / 1400
°C, the nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the combustion air combine to form nitrogen
oxide pollutants); it also avoids the ash melting problems related to high combustion
temperature. The mixing action of the fluidized bed brings the flue gases into contact with
a sulfur-absorbing chemical, such as limestone or dolomite. More than 95% of the sulfur
pollutants in coal can be captured inside the boiler by the sorbent. The reductions may be less
substantial than they seem, however, as they coincide with dramatic increases in carbon
(monoxide?) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons emissions
Commercial FBC units operate at competitive efficiencies, cost less than today's conventional
boiler units, and have NO2 and SO2 emissions below levels. However, they have some
disadvantages such as erosion on the tubes inside the boiler, uneven temperature distribution
caused by clogs on the air inlet of the bed, long starting times reaching up to 48 hours in
some cases.
1. FBC has a lower combustion temperature of 750 °C whereas an ordinary boiler
operates at 850 °C.
2. FBC has low sintering process (melting of Ash).
3. Lower production of NOx due to lower temperature.
4. Lower production of SOx due to capture by limestone.
5. Higher combustion efficiency due to 10 times more heat transfer than other
combustion processes because of burning particle.
6. Less area is required for FBC due to high coefficient of convective heat transfer.
7. Iso-thermal bed combustion as temperature in free belt and active belt remain
constant.