Tese: Energy, exergy, economic, environmental (4E) analysis of hybrid systems for electricity generation from municipal solid waste and natural gas
Aluno(a) : Maria Luisa Nerys de Moraes CarneiroOrientador(a): Marcos Sebastião Gomes
Área de Concentração: Petróleo e Energia
Data: 09/10/2019
Link para tese/dissertação: http://doi.org/10.17771/PUCRio.acad.47864
Resumo: This thesis aims to foster the development of hybrid waste-energy technology and its application in countries with access to natural gas reserves, such as Brazil. The method consists of evaluating it through an integrated analysis of energy, exergetic, economic and environmental indicators. The system consists of a topping and a bottoming cycle integrated through a heat recovery boiler. Raw non-recyclable urban waste feeds the waste boiler while natural gas feeds a gas turbine. The goal is to propose a cycle with high efficiency able to generate electricity/treat waste within affordable costs, which is achieved with an optimized design. The cycle’s performance is proportional to the share of natural gas thermal input, that is, the greater the amount of waste the lower the efficiency (waste has lower calorific value). Therefore, the challenge is to seek greater efficiency with higher percentage of waste, also combining the cost aspect. In general, there are two scenarios in the world’s actual context: developed and developing countries. The former has several non-hybrid plants, few natural gas reserves and face reduced waste production, causing underutilization of the existing systems. This thesis provides a complete analysis of potential alternatives for ’repotentiation’ of these plants, demonstrating how worse their performance is compared to the optimized cycle. On the other hand, developing countries present increasing waste generation, under exploited reserves of natural gas and zero waste-to-energy plants. Therefore, there is a great potential for building hybrid waste-to-energy systems. This work demonstrates this is a much more reasonable alternative than building non-hybrid conventional waste-to-energy plants.