Absorption Chillers to Improve the Performance of Small-Scale Biomethane Liquefaction Plants

Biomethane liquefaction may help decarbonization in heavy transportation and other hard-to-abate sectors. Small-scale liquefaction plants (<10 ton/day) are suitable for small biogas plants located near farms and other agricultural activities. “Internal refrigerant” refrigeration cycles (e.g., Kapitza cycle) are often proposed for small-scale natural gas liquefaction due to their simplicity. An optimized Kapitza-based cycle is modeled and simulated, and then several modifications were studied to evaluate their influence on the energetic and economic performances. Results showed a specific consumption ranging between 0.65 kWh/kg and 0.54 kWh/kg of bio-LNG with no significant improvements by increasing cycle complexity. Instead, a reduction of 17% was achieved with the implementation of absorption chillers, that effectively turn waste heat into useful cooling energy. An economic assessment was finally carried showing that the Levelized Cost of Liquefation is more affected by electricity cost than additional CapEx.

Investigate the Potential Use of Absorption Chiller for Waste Heat Recovery of Data Centre; Case Study of Earth Ranger Centre

Data centres are great contributors to global warming due to their high energy consumption. The same amount of energy being used in data centres to run the servers is required for cooling to prevent any damage as the result of overheating of the equipment. Reusing the exhaust heat for cooling purposes reduce energy demand for cooling and heat removal systems. This research proposal has focused on waste heat recovery of data centres located in Woodbridge, Ontario by using absorption chillers. A mathematical model was developed to analyze the performance of the system based on the temperature of the generator and absorber in Simulink/MATLAB. It is concluded that the COP of the system improves with the increase of the generator temperature and the decrease of the absorber temperature. Ultimately, a secondary energy source is required along with the rejected heat from the data centre to support the cooling load.

Investigate the Potential Use of Absorption Chiller for Waste Heat Recovery of Data Centre; Case Study of Earth Ranger Centre

Data centres are great contributors to global warming due to their high energy consumption. The same amount of energy being used in data centres to run the servers is required for cooling to prevent any damage as the result of overheating of the equipment. Reusing the exhaust heat for cooling purposes reduce energy demand for cooling and heat removal systems. This research proposal has focused on waste heat recovery of data centres located in Woodbridge, Ontario by using absorption chillers. A mathematical model was developed to analyze the performance of the system based on the temperature of the generator and absorber in Simulink/MATLAB. It is concluded that the COP of the system improves with the increase of the generator temperature and the decrease of the absorber temperature. Ultimately, a secondary energy source is required along with the rejected heat from the data centre to support the cooling load.