Dynamic Investigation of Thermochemical Heat Upgrade and Alternative Industrial Heating Technologies

Christos Sammoutos, Angeliki Kitsopoulou, Panagiotis Lykas, Dimitra Gonidaki, Evangelos Vidalis, Dimitrios Korres, Hamid Reza Rahbari, Christos Tzivanidis and Evangelos Bellos ()
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Christos Sammoutos: Department of Thermal Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 15772 Athens, Greece
Angeliki Kitsopoulou: Department of Thermal Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 15772 Athens, Greece
Panagiotis Lykas: Department of Thermal Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 15772 Athens, Greece
Dimitra Gonidaki: Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of West Attica, 250 Thivon & Petrou Ralli, 12244 Athens, Greece
Evangelos Vidalis: Department of Thermal Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 15772 Athens, Greece
Dimitrios Korres: Department of Thermal Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 15772 Athens, Greece
Hamid Reza Rahbari: Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Christos Tzivanidis: Department of Thermal Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, 15772 Athens, Greece
Evangelos Bellos: Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of West Attica, 250 Thivon & Petrou Ralli, 12244 Athens, Greece

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 8, 1-25

Abstract: Industrial process heat production is critical to achieving sustainability in our society. Avoiding fossil fuels and reducing electricity consumption for heat production are critical aspects of creating sustainable industries. Exploiting waste heat streams by upgrading them into useful high-temperature heat is an interesting idea for reducing the CO 2 footprint industrial processes. In line with this, the present study’s main objective is to investigate a novel thermochemical heat upgrade system based on the SrBr 2 /H 2 O working pair for the petrochemical industry, which is practically driven only by low-temperature waste heat streams. This innovative system, which exploits a waste heat stream of 200 °C and upgrades it to 250 °C to make it suitable for industry utilization, achieves a nominal coefficient of performance of 0.605. The examined system is compared with three other alternatives, including a natural gas boiler with 86% efficiency, a hybrid solar thermal unit with an auxiliary natural gas boiler, and a high-temperature heat pump with a coefficient of performance of two. The nominal industrial heat production is 2.2 MW for the thermochemical heat upgrade system. The dynamic investigation is conducted under the climate conditions of Denmark and Greece. The high-temperature heat pump’s annual electricity consumption is 6.94 GWh. In contrast, the annual heat consumed by the natural gas boiler is 16.12 GWh, without integrating the solar thermal unit. For the hybrid system, the maximum daily contribution of the solar thermal system is 87% for the climate conditions of Denmark, and the annual useful heat generated by the concentrating solar system is 1.30 GWh for the Danish climate conditions and 2.82 GWh for the Greek climate conditions.

Keywords: heat upgrade; thermochemical heat transformer; industrial process heat; solar thermal; natural gas boiler; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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