Investigation of the thermodynamic behavior of an apple juice waste- and sugarcane bagasse-fuelled combined-cycle power generation system

ABSTRACT

The paper presents an account of research findings dealing with the development of a thermodynamic equilibrium model based on chemical reactions resulting from gasification of solid wastes, apple juice waste and sugarcane bagasse. The existing data has been analyzed with respect to the effects of gasifier pressure and gas turbine inlet temperature (GTIT) on the lower heating value of syngas as well as on first- and second-law efficiencies of a solid waste-fuelled combined power cycle. Both these parameters for the combined power cycle decrease with an increase in gasifier pressure but increase with an increase in turbine inlet temperature. The observations also clearly indicate that the first-law efficiency is higher than the second-law efficiency, and this may be attributed to higher exergy content (biomass fuel) compared to the energy content. Further, compared to the sugarcane bagasse-fuelled cycle, improved performance in the context of higher first- and second-law efficiencies and lower CO₂ and H₂O emissions results from the apple juice waste-fuelled combined cycle.

KEYWORDS:

• Thermochemical equilibrium
• solid waste fuelled
• gasification
• syngas
• combined cycle