Energy, Exergy, Economic, Environmental and Computational fluid Dynamics (CFD) Assessment of a Very Small Incinerator Combined with a Heating System: An Advanced Study

Abstract

This research presents a very small incinerator combined with heating production (VICH). The objective of this study, a novel VICH system is designed, simulated, tested, and analyzed in terms of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD), energy, economic, environmental, and exergy (4E-CFD) analysis methods. The CFD assessment using three hot fluids—hot water, steam, and hot oil—the results implied that hot water was the best working fluid at an increased temperature of 116.57 °C for integration with an organic Rankine cycle (ORC). Moreover, the testing results implied that a refuse-derived fuel (RDF) at a low heating value of 16.62 MJ/kg could increase the hot water temperature to 111.18 °C, which was close to the CFD simulation result. The energy and exergy efficiencies were approximately 23.35% and 20.93%, respectively. A life cycle assessment (LCA) at a functional unit of 1 kgRDF-1 and a lifespan of 20 y found a climate change of 3.30E-03 kg CO2 eq, an ozone depletion of 1.52E-10 kg CFC-11 eq, a particulate matter formation of 8.36E-06 kg PM10 eq, a terrestrial acidification of 1.30E-05 kg SO2 eq, a freshwater eutrophication of 1.83E-06 kg P eq, a human toxicity of 1.81E-03 kg 1,4 DB eq, a terrestrial ecotoxicity of 2.25E-07 kg 1,4 DB eq, a freshwater ecotoxicity of 1.04E-04 kg 1,4 DB eq, a fossil depletion of 8.02E-04 kg oil eq, and a metal depletion of 6.69E-04 kg Fe eq. The LCA impacts were driven from 36.07% construction, 63.41% operations, 0.52% landfill decommissioning and 3.99% recycling. In the economic results, the levelized cost of the waste disposal combined heating process was approximately 0.006 USD/kgRDF.