Journal article
Life cycle assessment of novel heat exchanger for dry cooling of power plants based on encapsulated phase change materials
Applied energy, v 271(C), p115227
01 Aug 2020
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Cooling systems in power plants account for approximately 40% of total freshwater withdrawals in the U.S. Due to dwindling access to freshwater resources worldwide, continued operation of wet cooling systems poses a significant engineering challenge. To reduce water consumption, a novel air-cooled heat exchanger has been developed using encapsulated phase change material (EPCM) for dry cooling of power plants. Compared to traditional finned-tube air-cooled condensers, this novel EPCM heat exchanger improves the heat transfer coefficient and power plant efficiency while reducing the pressure drop and cooling system cost. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) are used to evaluate the environmental and economic performance of EPCM heat exchangers from cradle-to-grave and to compare them to wet cooling and traditional air-cooled condensers. A thermodynamic model is developed to predict the EPCM heat exchanger performance for plant-scale operations. Equipment and construction costs for heat exchangers are estimated based on design parameters obtained from the thermodynamic model. Both process-LCA and economic-input-output LCA are used to simulate and test the sensitivity of EPCM alternatives with commercial wet and dry cooling technologies. We investigate options for EPCM end-of-life management upon retiring the heat exchanger and construct a process-based LCA model to estimate a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions credit for recycling the EPCM. The life cycle GHG emission of the novel dry cooling technology is 1.16 kg CO2 (eq)./MWh compared with the 1.1-4.3 kg CO2 (eq)./MWh reported for commercial dry cooling technologies and consumes 9.5 L/MWh(e) of water for cradle-to-gate life cycle, which is significantly lower than that of wet cooling systems. The TEA shows many advantages of EPCM cooling technology over the state-of-art dry cooling solutions. Overall, the EPCM heat exchanger provides a better alternative compared to existing dry cooling and wet cooling technologies.
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Details
- Title
- Life cycle assessment of novel heat exchanger for dry cooling of power plants based on encapsulated phase change materials
- Creators
- Lige Zhang - Drexel UniversitySabrina Spatari - Drexel UniversityYing Sun - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Applied energy, v 271(C), p115227
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 17
- Grant note
- DE-AR0000572 / Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), U.S. Department of Energy; United States Department of Energy (DOE)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering; Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics; College of Engineering
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000540436500028
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85085348920
- Other Identifier
- 991019167796004721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Energy & Fuels
- Engineering, Chemical