Energy and Exergy Analysis of an Organic Rankine Cycle used for Ylang-Ylang Essential Oil Distillery Waste Heat Recovery for Power Production in Anjouan Island

International audienceIn the ylang-ylang essential oil distillers in Anjouan Island, the used energy is 100% firewood biomass. A large amount of this energy is dissipated in the environment just in the combustion chamber itself. As it turns out, the flue gases in this process take away the most part of it. Thus, in a process of energy efficiency of stills, the present work aims at assessing the possibility to convert the residual heat from the process into electricity. For that purpose, energy and exergy modeling of an organic Rankine cycle was implemented. It was found that a large amount of exergy is destroyed in the evaporator. Similarly, it emerges that the exergy efficiency of the cycle depends on the inlet temperatures of the exhaust gases in the evaporator and on the inlet pressure of the working fluid in the turbine, and that it is much better for low exhaust gas temperatures. At these low values of gas temperatures, it appears that the improvement in exergy efficiency and energy efficiency are linked to the increase in the inlet pressure of the working fluid in the turbine. It follows from the obtained results that the discharged hot water and the residual heat of gases having temperatures ranging from 180°C to 300 °C, could be used for power production which can reach electrical powers between 1.4kW and 4.5k

Life Cycle Analysis of Green Roof Implemented in a Global South Low-income Country

Environmental protection becomes a global challenge currently. Green roof is one of the innovative concepts to face this battle. An increase in its use is noticed in urban areas worldwide. But a question arises: what are the environmental consequences of the green roofs’ life cycle? In this paper, the environmental performance of two complete systems of lighter and heavier green roofs implemented in a global south low-income country are analyzed and compared in order to determine the potential impacts of both types of green roof systems. For proposing solutions aiming at reducing environmental loads of green roofs, Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach was used in the present study. For this purpose, the approach consists of the following phases: definition of the objective, life cycle inventory, characterization of impacts, and interpretation of results. LCA calculations were done with the help of OpenLCA software. Results show that, non treated materials and / or imported ones are more environmentally impactful. Hence, it is profitable to reduce the use of cement, gravel, virgin plastics, and soil as well as imported materials whose transport is done by plane. In addition, use of natural fertilizer for amending the growth substrate and water from well for watering the green roof, is also recommended