What is the
Kalina Cycle®?
The Kalina Cycle® is a major breakthrough in efficient
heat to power engineering. Across waste heat intense industries such as steel mills
and cement works to leveraging natural heat sources, the thermodynamic Kalina Cycle® can be applied to transform medium and low temperature
heat sources into emission-free power. For waste heat recovery and geothermal heat
energy conversion, the Kalina Cycle® can produce up
to 50% more power from the same heat source compared to other existing technologies.
Efficient heat to power engineering
The Kalina Cycle® is the most significant improvement
in thermal power plant design since the advent of the Rankine Cycle in the mid 1800s.
In a typical Rankine Cycle power plant, a pure working fluid, water or low molecular
weight organic compounds, is heated in a boiler and converted into high-pressure,
high temperature vapor which is then expanded through a turbine to generate electricity
in a closed loop system. The Kalina Cycle® utilizes
an ammonia-water mixture as a working fluid to improve system efficiency and provide
more flexibility in various operating conditions. The Kalina Cycle®
can improve power plant efficiency by 10% to 50% over the Rankine Cycle depending
on the application. As plant operating temperatures are lowered, the relative gain
of the Kalina Cycle® increases in comparison with the
Rankine Cycle.
Waste heat recovery plants using the Kalina Cycle®
technology are in operation at a Sumitomo Metal steelworks and Fuji Oil's refinery
in Tokyo Bay. Geothermal plants exist in Husavik, Iceland, and Unterhaching, Germany,
recently built by Siemens. The Kalina Cycle® trademark
and patents are owned by Global Geothermal.
View the Kalina Cycle® flow diagram
Get a quick overview of the thermodynamic Kalina Cycle®
components and fluid solutions at various points of the heat recovery process.
View the flow diagram
Húsavíkur Kalina Cycle® plant
The main components of the Husavik power plant include a vapor turbine-generator,
evaporator, separator, condenser, recuperator exchangers and feed pump...
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Kalina Cycle® versus Rankine Cycle
The Kalina Cycle® is the first major advance in power
generation technology over the Rankine Cycle, invented by William Rankine of Scotland
over 150 years ago...
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