Thermo-economic and environmental evaluation of a novel SOFC based trigeneration system using organic Rankine cycle and cascaded vapor compression-absorption refrigeration system

The trigeneration system is the best way to improve the performance of the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system. Therefore, in this study, organic Rankine cycle (ORC), cascaded vapor absorption refrigeration system (VARS)vapor compression refrigeration system (VCRS) were implemented in conventional hybrid SOFC-gas turbine (GT) systems for combined heating, power production, and cooling at low temperatures (-20 degrees C) for applications like food preservation. Through the use of engineering equation solver software, the performance of the suggested hybrid SOFC-GT-ORC-VARS-VCRS trigeneration plant was assessed from an energetic, exergetic, economic, and environmental perspective. Furthermore, parametric analysis of the suggested hybrid plant was carried out in conjunction with working fluid selection. The results show that the implementation of the ORC and cascade VARS-VCRS to the conventional SOFC-GT system improved energy efficiency, exergy efficiency, power output, and total cost by 34.88 %, 9.41 %, 6.58 %, and 11.71 %, respectively. However, the CO2 emission per MWh of energy output decreased by 25.85 %. Furthermore, the suggested hybrid trigeneration plant obtained the power output, cooling load, and heating load of 587.60 kW, 30.70 kW, and 125.30 kW, respectively. The bestperforming working fluids in terms of thermodynamic and economy were found to be R290 and R1233zd(E), respectively. Furthermore, the system performance was significantly impacted by SOFC parameters, according to parametric analysis. Overall, the suggested hybrid trigeneration plant outperforms the conventional SOFC-GT system in terms of thermodynamic and environmental impact.