High efficient heat engine process using either water or liquefied gases for its working fluid at lower temperatures

Abstract

The high efficient heat engine process can use either water or liquefied gases for its working fluid to extract thermal energy from the ambient or non-ambient heat sources to increase its heat transfer rate and its power generation efficiency. The slower-speed two-phase turbine has a high ratio gear reducer to increase a generator's speed and produce power at about 50% efficiency. A high ratio gear reducer is used to increase its generator's speed and meet its power generation requirements (3,600 RPM). The two-phase separator and compressor / pump substitute the cooling condenser's position and compress the waste streams directly back to the boiler and allow the process to run at temperatures lower than room temperature, with no need for a conventional cooling condenser. Owing to these two-phase separator / compressor / pump processes, this new heat engine process will not discharge thermal pollution and / or radioactive / hazardous wastes into the heat sink and global environment.

Description

I. FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates generally to generating power at lower temperatures by using liquefied gases as a working fluid via a heat engine process, and more particularly to a method of using slower-speed, balanced turbines attached to a high-ratio gear reducer to increase the generator's speed and meet its power generation requirements.II. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]In recent years, the conventional steam engine, air conditioner, and refrigerator have demanded higher efficiency, which need higher power producing benefit requirements and more advanced technology.[0003]The conventional steam engine only has about 30% efficiency, and the conventional air conditioner and refrigerator require outside power to run their compressors.[0004]The conventional air conditioner and refrigerator are considered heat pumps because they have similar four process elements of a heat engine, but they are called by different names. The conventional heat pump runs...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0020]An advantage of the present invention is that it is a more efficient heat engine process, with no need for a cooling condenser, and no waste thermal pollution. It just uses compressing power partially from turbines to push those condensed phase streams back into the boiler by the smaller pistons of the compressor / pump.

[0021]Another advantage of the present invention is the flexibility of the heat engine process (without condenser). It may use liquefied gases (oxygen or nitrogen) as its working fluid transferring energy and extracting work for this new air conditioner and new refrigerator system, in which it can have more temperature gradient, less heat transferring surface area, and shorter heat transfer time, and smaller heat exchanger size (smaller boiler).

[0022]Another advantage of the present invention is the two-phase separator flexibility. If water is chosen to be the working fluid, liquid oil will be sprayed into the condensed steam phase to scrub water particles down. The thick liquid oil layer is also responsible for covering the water surface to separate and prevent covered water from re-evaporating. If liquefied gas (oxygen or nitrogen) is chosen to be the working fluid, liquefied methane will be sprayed into the condensed phase (oxygen or nitrogen) to scrub liquid particles down. And thick liquefied methane layer is responsible for separating gas / liquid (oxygen or nitrogen) phases.

[0023]Yet another advantage of the present compressor is its piston area being much smaller than the two-phase turbine surface area, so that this smaller piston takes power partially from the turbine power, and pushes the waste, low-temperature streams back into the higher pressure boiler. The compressing power is extracted from that turbine power, from which the compressing power is much less than that.Turbines force Flarge=Pressuremed Arealarge>>compressor force Fmed=Pressurehigh Areasmall Arealarge turbines'>>> Areasmall piston's; Pressureturbines' med<Pressurepiston's higher

[0024]The present invention is a cyclic process, whose effect can generate power from the ambient temperature of solar energy and also cool down the surrounding temperature lower than room temperature (transfer heat energy into work from solar energy (by using liquefied gases (oxygen or nitrogen) as its working fluid). It is meant that the surrounding dissipates heat by contacting with the colder working fluid to have the surrounding temperature cooled down to lower than its room temperature (as a new air conditioner from this new heat engine process). Then, this new heat engine process compresses the waste streams back to the boiler (a place to restore heat), directly from a two-phase separator, without discarding waste heat into heat sink as the thermal pollution or unwanted thermal load.

[0025]This new high efficient heat engine process can use either water or liquefied gases for its working fluid by using (1) slower-speed-balanced turbines attached with a high ratio gear reducer to increase its generator's speed and meet its power generation requirements, and (2) two-phase separator / compressor / pump to compress the waste gas and liquid phases back into the higher pressure boiler.

Problems solved by technology

Therefore, the heat engine process can generate power, and the heat pump process can only be run by outside power through its compressor.

If the conventional heat engine refrigerant's and cooling fluid's temperatures run much lower than the room temperature, this lower temperature cooling fluid will take more outside power than the conventional heat engine can produce.

Therefore, since a cooling condenser is set to extract heat from the working fluid, there will be no net benefit of just reversing the operating direction from the conventional heat pump into a conventional heat engine process.

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