Thermodynamic and thermoeconomic analyses of an ejector/booster enhanced heat pump system with zeotropic mixture

In the current investigation, a novel ejector-enhanced heat pump system was presented and comprehensively evaluated using zeotropic mixtures. In the suggested plant, a booster was added to the conventional ejector-enhanced system to expand its performance. Moreover, the suggested plant was modeled in a way to operate zeotropic mixtures, in order to maximize the productivity of the system. The plant was investigated with regard to energy, exergy, and thermoeconomic analyses to have a deep insight of the performance characteristics, that is, exergy efficiency, COP, and unit price of the product. To this end, a parametric evaluation was conducted to predict the performance characteristics of the plant by changing the value of different input variables. The results of exergy analysis indicated that the maximum exergy annihilation (7.784 kW) was associated with the ejector. The proposed system was also compared with a conventional system, and the findings unfolded that the COP of the proposed system surpassed the conventional system by up to 25%. Moreover, the outcomes of thermoeconomic analysis showed that the unit product cost of the proposed system is 133.596 $/GJ. The outcomes further demonstrated that the highest performance of the plant was concluded using R-600/R-143a mixture fluid with R-600 mass fraction of 0.45. The sensitivity evaluation further indicated that, by enhancing the condenser temperature, exergetic efficiency and heating load increased while COP and unit cost of product decreased. Moreover, there was an optimum local point, in terms of exergetic efficiency (29.5%), when the booster pressure ratio is about 1.4. In addition, at the ejector pressure lift of 1.15, the exergetic efficiency was maximized locally. The heating load of the system, however, increased continually with increasing pressure lift. The proposed system showed a decent functionality with respect to thermodynamic and thermoeconomic criteria.

Automated summary

The novel ejector-enhanced heat pump system was evaluated with zeotropic mixtures for improved performance. Energy, exergy, and thermoeconomic analyses were conducted to optimize efficiency and cost-effectiveness, showing the system's functionality in meeting thermodynamic and economical criteria.