Thermo-economic investigation and multi objective optimization of cascade high temperature heat pump using low global warming refrigerants
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Date
2025-11-15
Open Access Location
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Publisher
Elsevier B.V.
Rights
(c) 2025 The Author/s
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Abstract
High temperature heat pumping (HTHP) is a key technology for decarbonizing industrial process heat. This paper describes an investigation into the thermodynamic and economic performance of a cascade HTHP configured with internal heat exchangers (IHXs), using low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants in both the top cycle and the bottom cycle. The proposed system was applied to a spray dryer case study with supply air temperature over 200 °C. A differential evolution (DE) method was used to optimize operating parameters to obtain the maximum COP. The simulation results indicated that of the cycles and refrigerants considered, the maximum COP can be obtained when using acetone or ethanol in the top cycle (TC) and butane or neopentane in the bottom cycle (BC). The use of acetone/neopentane and ethanol/neopentane achieved a highest COP of 2.42; however, better economic performance was achieved when using butane as the BC refrigerant rather than neopentane, while the economic and thermodynamic performance of the heat pumps were similar when acetone and ethanol were used as TC refrigerants. The performance of the most promising refrigerants was analyzed under off-design conditions, with minimum and maximum COP being 2.19 and 2.82, respectively obtained with the sink inlet/outlet temperature of 50 °C/230 °C and 15 °C/200 °C.
Description
Keywords
Heat pump, Cascade cycle, Differential evolution, Spray dryer
Citation
Hoang DK, Walmsley TG, Cleland DJ, Chen Q, Carson JK. (2025). Thermo-economic investigation and multi objective optimization of cascade high temperature heat pump using low global warming refrigerants. Applied Thermal Engineering. 279. Part E.