TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparative life-cycle assessment of a novel osmotic heat engine and an organic Rankine cycle for energy production from low-grade heat
AU - Hickenbottom, Kerri L.
AU - Miller-Robbie, Leslie
AU - Vanneste, Johan
AU - Marr, Junko Munakata
AU - Heeley, Michael B.
AU - Cath, Tzahi Y.
N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank US Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy Award #0670-3228 and EPA-STAR Award #FP91746401-0 for the financial support of the research. The authors would also like to acknowledge Mr. Tani Cath and Mr. Mike Veres for their technical support in bench scale system fabrication and the control system design. Special thanks to Keith Lampi and Edward Beaudry for providing membranes and technical support. Funding Information: The authors would like to thank US Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy Award #0670-3228 and EPA-STAR Award #FP91746401-0 for the financial support of the research. The authors would also like to acknowledge Mr. Tani Cath and Mr. Mike Veres for their technical support in bench scale system fabrication and the control system design. Special thanks to Keith Lampi and Edward Beaudry for providing membranes and technical support. Publisher Copyright: © 2018 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2018/8/1
Y1 - 2018/8/1
N2 - A comparative life-cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to evaluate the environmental impacts of an osmotic heat engine (OHE) and an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) for electrical energy generation from low-grade heat. The OHE is a novel membrane-based process that couples pressure retarded osmosis (an energy generating process) and membrane distillation (a working fluid regeneration process), whereas the ORC is an established power cycle. The LCA considered the material use for system construction and operation, and found that the environmental impacts for both the construction and operation stages of the OHE were higher than the ORC. The sensitivity analysis concluded that OHE environmental impacts could be reduced by 80% with future improvements to PRO membranes and membrane module performance. Additionally, with further improvements the OHE could be a viable energy production process that can increase energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions from coal and natural gas power plants by 20.5 and 11.9 million kg of CO2 per year, respectively.
AB - A comparative life-cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to evaluate the environmental impacts of an osmotic heat engine (OHE) and an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) for electrical energy generation from low-grade heat. The OHE is a novel membrane-based process that couples pressure retarded osmosis (an energy generating process) and membrane distillation (a working fluid regeneration process), whereas the ORC is an established power cycle. The LCA considered the material use for system construction and operation, and found that the environmental impacts for both the construction and operation stages of the OHE were higher than the ORC. The sensitivity analysis concluded that OHE environmental impacts could be reduced by 80% with future improvements to PRO membranes and membrane module performance. Additionally, with further improvements the OHE could be a viable energy production process that can increase energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions from coal and natural gas power plants by 20.5 and 11.9 million kg of CO2 per year, respectively.
KW - Life cycle assessment
KW - Membrane distillation
KW - Osmotic heat engine
KW - Pressure retarded osmosis
KW - Renewable energy
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.04.106
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.04.106
M3 - Article
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 191
SP - 490
EP - 501
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
ER -