Compared to the conventional Rankine cycle using water, the ORC can create efficient expansion at low power, avoid superheater and offer higher thermal efficiency in low temperature application. Small-scale ORCs from several kWe to a few hundred kWe offer great potential for meeting the residential demand on heat and power, and are of growing interest in scientific and technical fields. However, one critical problem is the decreased device efficiency and cost-effectiveness that arises when the ORC is scaled down.

In this thesis, the ORC is combined with low concentration-ratio solar collectors. The background, research trend, merits and importance of the solar ORC are described. To reduce the thermodynamic irreversibility and the cost of the system, three innovative solutions are proposed: solar ORC without heat transfer fluid (HTF), which employs two-stage collectors and heat storage units; hybrid solar power generation based on ORC and amorphous silicon cells; osmosis-driven solar ORC. Heat collection, storage and power conversion are optimized. The design, construction and test of a prototype are conducted, demonstrating the feasibility of the ORC for small-scale cogeneration. Special attention is paid to the variable operation and parameter design with respect to the condensation temperature.

Nominated by University of Science and Technology of China as an outstanding PhD thesis Presents the structural optimization of the ORC Contains valuable information about the practical usage of the ORC Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext

Yuanyuan Ke is employed as the professor and doctoral supervisor of School of Mathematics, Renmin University of China. She is mainly engaged in the theoretical research and application of reaction-diffusion equation. She won Beijing Higher Education Young Elite Teacher Project, the Excellent Teacher Award of Baosteel and the Research Award Program for Outstanding Young Teachers in Higher Education Institutions in Beijing. She presided over 8 high-level scientific research projects, 2 educational reform projects and published 50 scientific research papers. Jing Li is employed as the associate professor and master supervisor of College of Science, Minzu University of China. She was also employed as the High-level Young Talent of Minzu University of China from 2019 to 2022. Her research interests are the relevance of chemotaxis in reaction-diffusion processes and mathematical theory of nonlocal problem in biology. She presided over three National Natural Science Foundation projects (NNSF) and published more than 20 scientific research papers. Yifu Wang is employed as the professor of school of Mathematics and Statistics, Beijing Institute of Technology, P.R. of China. His research is concerned mainly with qualitative analysis of nonlinear parabolic equations, such as chemotactic cross-diffusion system in biology and ecology. He has been the supervisor of several master's degree students and Ph.D. students. The research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSF) and program for new century excellent talents in university (NCET). He has published 80 scientific research papers.

Inhalt
Gradual progress in the organic Rankine cycle and solar thermal power generation.- Structural optimization of the ORC-based solar thermal power system.- Experimental study of the organic Rankine cycle under variable condensation temperature.- Examination of key issues in designing the ORC condensation temperature.- Conclusion and future work.