Energy and exergy analyses of a biomass integrated gasification cogeneration system for combined production of power and refrigeration

In this paper, energy and exergy analyses of a biomass-driven syngas-fuelled cogeneration cycle for combined production of power and cooling is presented. A parametric analysis is performed to investigate the effects of change in biomass material, gas turbine inlet temperature and steam turbine inlet pressure on performance of the topping integrated gasification combined cycle and bottoming organic Rankine cycle with an ejector. Further, a performance comparison of combined power and cooling plant is made with the triple power cycle (without ejector) to quantify the performance variation due to ejector employment. Results show that employment of ejector in triple power cycle on average enhances its first-law efficiency by approximately 1.5% and its corresponding second-law efficiency increased by 1.25%. Moisture content in the biomass material shows its importance from an exergy point of view, as second-law efficiency drops considerably from 38.05% to 33.51% when moisture content increases from 20% to 50% when the biomass fuel changed from rice husk to manure. Energy distribution is less sensitive to considered biomass material as compared with the exergy distribution.