• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.510-517
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• 2013

The ammonia-water based power generation cycle utilizing liquefied natural gas (LNG) as its heat sink has attracted much attention, since the ammonia-water cycle has many thermodynamic advantages in conversion of low-grade heat source in the form of sensible energy and LNG has a great cold energy. In this paper, we carry out thermodynamic performance analysis of a combined power generation cycle which is consisted of an ammonia-water regenerative Rankine cycle and LNG power generation cycle. LNG is able to condense the ammonia-water mixture at a very low condensing temperature in a heat exchanger, which leads to an increased power output. Based on the thermodynamic models, the effects of the key parameters such as source temperature, ammonia concentration and turbine inlet pressure on the characteristics of system are throughly investigated. The results show that the thermodynamic performance of the ammonia-water power generation cycle can be improved by the LNG cold energy and there exist an optimum ammonia concentration to reach the maximum system net work production.