Heat pump
AssigneeMechanical Technology Incorporated
InventorHerman M. Leibowitz
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An open Rankine cycle heat pump that utilizes a multistage compressor having interstage desuperheating wherein process fluid in the form of water drawn from a waste heat producing process is used as the working fluid in the heat pump thereby eliminating the need for heat exchangers at the conventional evaporator and condensor locations. Heated return water drawn from the process is flashed to a vapor and the vapors passed through the compressor to provide thermal energy that is used in compatible process related equipment.
Claims12
The method of recovering energy from an industrial process containing a heated waste fluid that includes the steps of:
- removing a portion of said heated waste fluid from the high temperature side of said process;
- flashing at least a portion of the removed heated waste fluid to a vapor;
- passing said vapor in series through a multistage compressor wherein the vapor is superheated within each stage;
- desuperheating the vapor leaving each compressor stage to a dry saturated state by spraying a liquid coolant into said vapor;
- and
- employing the vapor leaving the last stage of compression to provide thermal energy to compatible process related equipment.
A heat pump for removing usable energy from a process of the type which generates a heated process fluid that includes:
- a supply line for bringing heated process fluid from the process equipment to a low pressure flash tank whereby at least a portion of the fluid is flashed to a vapor;
- a multistage compressor in a series configuration for raising the temperature and pressure of said vapor, said multistage compressor arranged so that vapor collected in the flash tank is drawn into the suction side of a first stage;
- and
- desuperheater means connected to the discharge side of each compressor stage for reducing the temperature of vapor leaving each stage to a dry saturation pressure.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.