• When a new energy source, such as a geothermal well, is discovered, the first

thing the explorers do is estimate the amount of energy contained in the

source.
• This information alone, however, is of little value in deciding whether to build a
power plant on that site.
• What we really need to know is the work potential of the source, that is, the
amount of energy we can extract as useful work.
• The rest of the energy is eventually discarded as waste energy and is not
worthy of our consideration.
• Thus, it would be very desirable to have a property to enable us to determine
the useful work potential of a given amount of energy at some specified
state.
• This property is EXERGY, which is also called the availability or available
energy
 Dead state

• The useful work potential of a system is the amount of energy we extract as

useful work.
• The useful work potential of a system at the specified state is called exergy.
• Exergy is a property and is associated with the state of the system and the
environment.
• work done during a process depends on the initial state, the final state, and
the process path. That is, Work = f (initial state, process path, final state)
• A system that is in equilibrium with its surroundings has zero exergy and is
said to be at the dead state.
• At the dead state, a system is at the temperature and pressure of its
environment it has no kinetic or potential energy relative to the environment
and it does not react with the environment
• Also, there are no unbalanced magnetic, electrical, and surface tension
effects between the system and its surroundings
• The properties of a system at the dead state are denoted by subscript zero,
for example, P0, T0, h0, u0, and s0.
• A system has zero exergy at the dead state
• Exergy is the tool, which indicates how far the system departs from
equilibrium state. The concept of exergy was put forward by Gibbs in
1878. It was further developed by Rant in 1957
• Quantative evaluation of energy in a cycle or in a process can be done
using the first law of thermodynamics
• The direction of flow of heat or work is known from the second law of
thermodynamics. However, it is equally important to assign the quality to
the energy
• Energy can be broadly classified into high grade and low grade energy
• The bulk of the high grade energy in the form of
mechanical work or electrical energy is obtained from
sources of low grade energy, such as fuels, through the
medium of the cyclic heat engine
• The complete conversion of low grade energy, heat into
high grade energy, work is impossible by the second law
of thermodynamics
• The part of the low grade energy which is available for
conversion is referred to as available energy, while the
part which, according to second law, must be rejected, is
unavailable energy.
• Exergy analysis helps in finding the following:
• It can be used to determine the type, location and
magnitude of energy losses in a system
• It can be used to find means to reduce losses to make
the energy system more efficient
• Consider a cyclic heat engine as shown in Fig. The maximum work output
obtainable from this engine is the available energy
• The minimum energy that has to be rejected to the sink (as per 2nd law of
thermodynamics) is called the unavailable energy
Availability in a finite process
• Let x-y be a finite process in which heat is supplied reversibly to a heat engine.
• Taking an elementary cycle, let dQ1 be the heat received by the engine
reversibly at temperature T1. Then
Available energy from a finite energy source
• Consider hot gas of mass mg at temperature T when the temperature of
environment is T0
• Let the gas be cooled at constant pressure to T0 from state 1 and the heat
given up by the gas Q1 is utilized in heating up (reversibly) a working fluid of
mass mwf from state 3 to 1 along the same path
• So that the temperature difference between the gas and working fluid at
any instant is zero and hence entropy increase of the universe is also zero.
• The working fluid expands reversibly and adiabatically in an engine or
turbine from state 1 to 2 doing work WE and then rejects heat Q2 reversibly
and isothermally to return to the initial state 3 to complete the heat engine
cycle.
Demonstration of quality of energy based on exergy
• Consider a hot gas of mass m flowing through a pipeline
• Due to the heat loss to the surroundings, the temperature of the gas decreases
continuously from the inlet state 'a' to the exit state 'b'.
• Thus, the process is irreversible. However, for sake of simplicity, let’s consider the
process to be reversible and isobaric between the inlet and outlet.
• For an infinitesimal reversible process at constant pressure,

• The slope dT/dS depends on temperature T. With

increase in T, slope dT/dS increases and vice
versa.
 Heat loss at section 1-1

W1 = Q - T0ΔS1 = T1ΔS1 - T0ΔS1 = (T1 - T0) ΔS1

At section 2-2, let heat loss be same as in section 1-1, (T2 < T1)
(Q = T1ΔS1)

W2 = Q - T0ΔS2 = (T2 ΔS2 - T0ΔS2) = (T2 - T0 ) ΔS2

Interpretations:
• For the same heat loss at two different temperatures, exergy loss is more with
higher temperature.
• For instance, exergy loss is more at 1000 K than that at 300 K for 1 kJ of heat loss.
• The more the temperature, the more is the quality of energy.
• For example, quality of energy of a gas at 1000 K is superior to that at 400 K, since
the gas at 1000 K has the capacity of doing more work than the gas at 400 K.

Some more examples of quality degradation

a) Throttle Process
• For frictionless, steady flow process of an ideal gas
between sections (1)-(1) and (2)-(2) in a pipe
• This equation is the expression for the irreversibility of the sections
(1)-(1) and (2)-(2).
• It is obvious from the expression that quality degrades
logarithmically with pressure drop between the sections as well as
with the mass flow rate for an initial pressure p1and surrounding
temperature T0.
b) Quality degradation for a flow with friction
• Consider a steady and adiabatic flow of an ideal gas through the segment of
a pipe. Applying the first law of thermodynamics between sections (1)-(1)
and (2)-(2)
• Hence decrease in exergy is proportional to the pressure drop as well as
mass flow rate.
c) Mixing of two fluid streams
• Two fluid streams 1 and 2 of an incompressible fluid or ideal gas mixing
adiabatically at constant pressure as shown in Fig.
Exergy balance for closed and open system
• Exergy balance for the closed and open systems can be used to
determine the locations, types and magnitude of losses of potential
energy resources and ways can be found to reduce such losses for
making the energy system more efficient.
Closed system
• For a closed system exergy or availability transfer occurs through heat
and work interactions. No mass is transferred across the system
boundary.
• Open system: Exergy balance for a steady flow system
Exergetic or Second Law Efficiency
• we defined the thermal efficiency and the
COP for devices as a measure of their
performance.
• They are defined on the basis of the first
law only, and they are sometimes referred
to as the first-law efficiencies.
• The first law efficiency, however, makes no
reference to the best possible performance
• Consider two heat engines, both having a
thermal efficiency of 30 % as shown in Fig.
• One of the engines (engine A) is supplied
with heat from a source at 600 K, and the
other one (engine B) from a source at 1000
K. Both engines reject heat to a medium at
300 K.
 • At first glance, both engines seem to convert to work the same fraction of
heat that they receive; thus they are performing equally well.
• When we take a second look at these engines in light of the second law of
thermodynamics, however, we see a totally different picture.
• These engines, at best, can perform as reversible engines, in which case
their efficiencies would be

• Now the engine B has a greater work potential available

to it (70 % of the heat supplied as compared to 50 % for
engine A),
• Thus should do a lot better than engine A. Therefore,
we can say that engine B is performing poorly relative to
engine A even though both have the same thermal
efficiency.
• It is obvious from this example that the first-law efficiency alone is
not a realistic measure of performance of engineering devices.
• To overcome this deficiency, we define a second-law efficiency as
the ratio of the actual thermal efficiency to the maximum possible
(reversible) thermal efficiency under the same conditions

• Based on this definition, the second-law efficiencies of the two heat engines can
be written as

• That is, engine A is converting 60 % of the available work potential to useful work
and this ratio is only 43 % for engine B.
• The second-law efficiency can also be expressed as the ratio of the useful
work output and the maximum possible (reversible) work output:

• We can also define a second-law efficiency for work-consuming noncyclic (such as

compressors) and cyclic (such as refrigerators) devices as the ratio of the minimum
(reversible) work input to the useful work input:

• For cyclic devices such as refrigerators and heat pumps, it can also be expressed in
terms of the coefficients of performance as