Open Physics 2021; 19: 331–340

Research Article

Da Li, Qiang Sun, Ke Sun*, Guodong Zhang, Shuzhan Bai*, and Guoxiang Li*

Diesel engine waste heat recovery system

comprehensive optimization based on system
and heat exchanger simulation
https://doi.org/10.1515/phys-2021-0039
received February 04, 2021; accepted May 11, 2021
Nomenclature
Abstract: To further improve the thermal efficiency of E power output, kW
diesel engines, a waste heat recovery system model uti- m mass flow rate, kg/s
lizing organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is constructed and Q heat flux, kW
verified through system bench test and heat exchanger h enthalpy, kJ/kg
bench test. To recover waste heat from diesel engine η efficiency
exhaust, ethanol, cyclopentane, cyclohexane, R1233zd out outlet
(E), and R245fa were selected for comparison. The quality s heat source
of heat source, the quality of evaporator, the system r working fluid
output, and the system complicity were taken as vari- re recuperated
ables for comparison. Analysis shows that for ORC sys-
tems without recuperator, ethanol system has the best
system output of the five in a wide operation temper range,
with the highest exergy efficiency of 24.1%, yet the exergy Subscripts and superscripts
efficiency increase after the application of recuperator,
9.0%, is limited. For low temperature exhaust, cyclopen- eva evaporator
tane system has the best performance with or without exp expander
recuperator, and the cyclopentane system with recup- in inlet
erator has the best performance in terms of exergy effi-
ciency, 27.6%, though complex heat exchangers are also
required for high power output. The system output of the
R1233zd system is better than the R245fa system, yet the Acronyms
advantage of low evaporate temperature can be better uti-
lized for low quality waste heat recovery. ORC organic Rankine cycle
EGR exhaust gas recirculation
Keywords: organic Rankine cycle, exhaust, working fluid,
PTD pinch point temperature difference
recuperator
CO2 carbon dioxide


* Corresponding author: Ke Sun, School of Energy and Power
Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250061, China,
1 Introduction
e-mail: sunkeke@sdu.edu.cn
* Corresponding author: Shuzhan Bai, School of Energy and Power As the most favorable power source for heavy-duty road
Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250061, China, vehicles, the thermal efficiency of diesel engines has
e-mail: baishuzhan@sdu.edu.cn increased significantly in recent decades. However, other
* Corresponding author: Guoxiang Li, School of Energy and Power
methods of waste heat recovery also need to be applied,
Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250061, China,
e-mail: liguox@sdu.edu.cn
to further increase system exergy efficiency and meet new
Da Li, Qiang Sun, Guodong Zhang: School of Energy and Power or upcoming regulations of CO2 emission. A large propor-
Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, 250061, China tion of combustion energy would inevitably be lost

Open Access. © 2021 Da Li et al., published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License.
332  Da Li et al.
through engine cooling system and exhaust emissions.
The waste heat recovery system using organic Rankine
cycle (ORC) can effectively recover waste heat from low
quantity heat sources [1]. The ORC system structure is
shown in Figure 1. High pressure working fluid recovers
waste heat in the evaporation process, exchanging heat
within the evaporator, with or without separate preheater
and superheater. Then the high pressure gas expands in
the expander and generates kinetic power output through
the expansion process. After expansion, working fluid
condenses in the condenser and flows back to the fluid
tank, ready for another cycle.
Conditions of heat sources are essential for ORC system
working fluid selection. Studies of stationary ORC sys-
tems [2,3], though valuable for system analysis and simu-
lation, still have much difference with ORC systems for
road vehicles. To recover waste heat from heavy-duty
diesel engines, Preißinger et al. [4] examined 3,000 pro-
mising working fluid candidates and rank ethanol as the
best ORC working fluid for heavy-duty trucks, as well as
passenger cars. Amicabile et al. [5] propose a comprehen-
sive design methodology to optimize the ORC system, and
separate evaporator and superheater were applied to
recover waste heat from engine exhaust and Exhaust
Gas Recirculation (EGR) cooler. Among ethanol, pentane,
and R245fa, Amicabile suggests ethanol has both the
best performance and the minimum capital cost. Other
researches focused on dry fluids with low evaporate tem-
perature, to recover waste heat from low quality heat
sources. Yang et al. [6] suggested R1233zd (E) and other
fluids as better replacement, while Talluri et al. [7] inves-
tigated an ORC Tesla turbine through experiment using
R1233zd (E) as working fluid. Chen et al. [8] proposed
a confluent cascade expansion ORC system for engine
waste heat recovery, using single fluid for both high-tem-
perature and low temperature recovery, and cyclopen-
tane is analyzed to be regarded as the most suitable
working fluid for this novel system. Li et al. [9] created
Figure 1: ORC system structure.
a CO2 transcritical power cycle using single working fluid
with low evaporate temperature; the system has utilized
48.9% of the exhaust and 72.8% of the coolant energy.
Heat exchangers are essential components of ORC
systems. Preheater, evaporator, superheater, and recup-
erator determined the total waste heat recovery, and effi-
ciencies of heat exchangers are important for ORC system
structure design. For simple and compact ORC system
structure, Holik et al. [10] implemented a two-objective
optimization based on the maximization of power output
and minimization of the total heat exchanger surface area
and suggested that recuperator is not advisable for com-
pact ethanol ORC system. Amicabile et al. [5] considered
layout with and without recuperator and also suggested
that the ethanol system lay out without recuperator has
the minimum capital cost. The complicate systems of Shu
et al. [11] and Li et al. [9] both take recuperator into
consideration.
Turbine expander [12], though promising for ORC
system, is less advisable for wet fluid expansion. Song
et al. [13] studied and summarized the application of a
scroll expander in ORC system with higher efficiency
in single working condition and droplet tolerance.
When using ethanol and other wet working fluids with
relatively large expansion, the piston expander has the
advantage of sufficient energy recovery. Li et al. [14] ana-
lyzed the output of the free single-piston expander used
in the compact ORC system and optimized the control
strategy. Han et al. [15] conducted an experimental study
on the application of the rotary piston expander in the
ORC system. Piston expander can achieve large expan-
sion ratio without significant efficiency loss, and the
scroll expander can achieve higher isentropic efficiency
at lower expansion ratio. As suggested by Chen et al. [8],
large expansion ratio and high expander efficiency can be
both achieved by using multiple high efficiency expan-
ders, yet the cost of the system will increase significantly.
The paper chose piston expander with wide expansion
ratio.
Study on plate heat exchangers has progressed greatly
in recent years; magnetic field [16], nanoparticles [16–18],
and heat transfer within pipes [17–19] have been much
considered. However, due to high evaporate pressure and
limits in experiments, tube-fin heat exchangers are uti-
lized in this paper. Though recover heat from low tem-
perature heat sources has certain methods for stationary
waste recovery systems [20], much practical difficulties
restrain them for road vehicles.
Former researches either exclude recuperater due to
using wet fluids, or include recuperator in a complex
system. To further increase the thermal and exergy
 Diesel engine waste heat recovery system comprehensive optimization
efficiency of ORC system, other typical working fluids,
especially dry fluid with similar evaporate temperature
of ethanol, need comprehensive examination. This paper
used a certain type of hybrid diesel engine for heavy-duty
trucks as the heat source and selected the exhaust
at typical operating points as the heat input of the ORC
system. Beside ethanol, cyclopentane, cyclohexane,
R1233zd (E), and R245fa were also selected for compar-
ison. In order to achieve efficient waste heat recovery,
working fluids of the ORC system need to evaporate at
proper temperature. The selection of high-temperature
heat exchangers and expanders also needs to be adjusted
accordingly. Comprehensively optimizing the recuperator
and evaporator can provide reference for future vehicle
ORC system working fluid selection.
2 Methods
The ORC system model, a simple system with or without
recuperator, has been constructed for analysis, with the
system structure shown in Figure 1. The objective of the
optimization process is to achieve high power output
with limited system complexity and cost.
2.1 System construction
The T–s diagram of an ethanol ORC system is shown in
Figure 2. With fixed evaporation temperature and the
condensing temperature, the thermal efficiency of the
system is largely determined by the expansion process
(4–5). Therefore, the optimal working fluid shall have a
large expansion ratio, which means high evaporate pres-
sure and low condense pressure within the operation
temperature range, since larger proportion of energy
will be recovered. However, the exergy efficiency of the
system is also affected by the amount of energy recovery
in waste heat exchanging of preheating, evaporation, and
superheating (1–2–3–4). The working fluid largely deter-
mines both the expansion ratio and the heat exchanging
within the evaporator, thus the selection of the working
fluid is essential to both the thermal efficiency and exergy
efficiency of the ORC system.
To recover waste heat from diesel engine exhaust, the
working fluid of the ORC system shall properly operate
within the heat source temperature range. Ethanol, cyclo-
pentane, cyclohexane, R245fa, and R1233zd (E) were
selected for comparison, and the T–s diagram of these
 333
Figure 2: T–s diagram of the ethanol ORC system.
fluids is shown in Figure 2, and related properties are
given in Table 1. R245fa and R1233zd have much lower
evaporating temperatures, thus the temperature differ-
ence within the evaporator will remain large at wide
heat source temperature range; yet the condensing tem-
peratures of the two fluids are also low, resulting in
relatively low condensing pressure and expansion ratio.
Ethanol, cyclopentane, and cyclohexane have higher
evaporating temperatures, with the evaporating tempera-
ture of cyclohexane slightly higher than the other two;
the thermal efficiency of the three fluids will be larger.
The major disadvantage of the three systems will be the
evaporation process, as high evaporation temperature
may reduce the proportion of waste heat recovery within
the evaporator, thus decreases exergy efficiency. The T–s
diagram of selected working fluids and related working
fluid properties (include latent heat) are given in Figure 3
and Table 1.
In order to focus on the simulation analysis of the
heat exchanger part, it is necessary to simplify the heat
source and other parts of the system to reduce secondary
variables and reduce the complexity of the model. To this
end, the following assumptions are made for the system:
(1) The operating conditions in the ORC system model
are all steady state, and the heat source inlet tempera-
ture and flow rate at each operating point are constant.
(2) The condenser of the system is parallel to the engine
cooling system. The superheat degree and the under-
cooling degree are both constant.
(3) The pressure drop and heat transfer loss of the eva-
porator and recuperator are determined with refer-
ence to experimental data, and the pressure drop
and heat transfer loss of pipelines and other compo-
nents are ignored.
334  Da Li et al.

Table 1: Working fluid properties

Ethanol Cyclopentane R245fa Cyclohexane R1233zd

Evaporate temperature (°C) 200.4 208.5 143.3 256.3 155.4

Condense pressure (MPa) 0.10 0.17 0.53 0.10 0.45
Latent heat (kJ/kg) 505.5 185.1 73.8 157.6 71.36

With recuperator applied, the working fluid after

expansion will preheat the working fluid after pump.
The modified power output can be defined as equa-
tion (2):
Ere = Qeva ⋅ η − Wpump
h − h5
= ηeva ⋅ ms ⋅(hin − ḣ out)⋅ 4 ⋅ ηexp
h4 − h1re (2)
h − h9
− mr ⋅ 1
ηpump

The power output gain can be defined as equation (3):

h −h
Ere ηeva ⋅ ms ⋅(hin − ḣ out)⋅ h 4− h 5 ⋅ ηexp
4 1re
η̇ = ≈ h −h
E ηeva ⋅ ms ⋅(hin − hout) ⋅ h4 − h5 ·ηexp
4 1 (3)
Figure 3: T–s Diagram of selected working fluids.
(hin − ḣ out) ⋅(h4 − h1)
=
(hin − hout) ⋅(h4 − h1re )
(4) The working fluid can be fully expanded in the
Therefore, the exhaust outlet temperature of the eva-
expander, and the efficiency of the expander and
porator and the recuperate rate are the critical factors of
working fluid pump is constant.
the power output gain.
The largely simplified ORC system model is used to
calculate system output and thermal or exergy efficiency.
For system complicity analysis, an additional heat exchanger
model is applied for detailed evaporator and recuperator cal-
2.2 System modeling
culation. Equations of heat exchanger model are given in
Table 2.
The power output of the ORC system without recuperator
As both the evaporator and the recuperator are com-
can be defined as equation (1):
pact tube-fin heat exchangers, the single phase turbulent
E = Qeva ⋅ η − Wpump flow within the tube, namely in the recuperator and in the
h 4 − h5 preheating section and superheating section of the eva-
= ηeva ⋅ ms ⋅(hin − hout)⋅ ⋅ ηexp
h4 − h1 (1) porator, is calculated with equations (5) and (6); the two
h − h9 phase turbulent flow of the evaporator is calculated with
− mr ⋅ 1
ηpump equation (7). The exhaust side of the evaporator is calcu-
lated with equation (4). The condenser is simplified.
where ηeva stands for the thermal efficiency of the eva- The heat exchanger model is verified by the heat
porator, ηexp stands for the expander isentropic effi- exchanger experiment. Parameters of the evaporator
ciency, ηpump stands for the pump efficiency, ms stands and the recuperator are also mainly taken from the heat
for heat source (exhaust) mass flow, mr stands for working exchanger bench test. The system model is verified by the
fluid mass flow, hin and hout stand for the enthalpy of the ORC system experiment, and other parameters of the ORC
heat source at the inlet and the outlet, h1, h4, and h5 stand system are determined through the ORC system bench
for the enthalpy of the working fluid at each point in test with the recuperator. The relevant boundary condi-
Figure 2, the same below. tions are shown in Table 3.
 Diesel engine waste heat recovery system comprehensive optimization  335

Table 2: Equations of heat exchanger model

Heat exchanger Equations [21–24]

Exhaust side s

−0.0887
 N·s2 
−0.159
Nu = 0.982 ⋅ Re0.424 ⋅   ⋅  (4)
 d3   d3 
Cold side (Single  0.5

f  f 
phase) Nu =   ⋅(Re − 1000)⋅ Pr /12.7 ·  ⋅(Pr2 / 3 − 1) + 1.07 (5)
8  8 
f = (1.82 ⋅ lg Re−1.5)−2 (6)
Two phase zone kl
htp = 30 ⋅ Relo0.857 ⋅ Bo0.714 ·(1 − x )−0.143 · (7)
d

Heat source conditions are taken from the bench test 3 Result and analysis
of a certain diesel engine, namely, the exhaust conditions
at the minimum fuel consumption point. The parameters
3.1 Preliminary analysis
of expanders are taken from The test bench (Figure 4) and
use electric heated or water cooled exhaust to simulate
Thermal efficiencies of simple ORC systems without (light
actual engine exhaust at each working point, with a
grey) and with recuperator (dark grey) are shown in
water cooling condenser. The evaporator test used 95%
Figure 6. The thermal efficiency of R245fa system is the
ethanol as working fluid, while the recuperator test used
lowest, which is 7.7% without recuperator and 10.0%
R245fa. The heat exchanger model is also verified by the
with recuperator. R1233zd shows a slightly better perfor-
heat exchanger experiment.
mance of 8.9 and 11.1%, yet still no better than the other
The ORC system optimization process is shown in
three fluids. Ethanol system without recuperator has the
Figure 5. In the preliminary analysis, a largely simplified
highest thermal efficiency of 13.2%, while cyclohexane
model is utilized to perform simplified calculations. Para-
system has the best performance of 16.6% among recup-
meters are entirely preset to acquire a qualitative analysis
erated systems. As for dry fluids, waste heat after expan-
result of the ORC system, namely, the thermal efficiency
sion process is proportionally larger than wet fluids;
of systems with different working fluids. The coupled
with proportionally larger temperature difference within
analysis utilized the detailed heat exchanger model related
the recuperator, the thermal efficiency increase will be
in Table 2, to optimize the simplified heat exchanger cal-
more significant. Ethanol is the only wet fluid of the
culation data in the system model and to achieve a com-
five, and the latent heat at 3 MPa is also proportionally
prehensive optimization of the system complicity and
power output, in terms of both heat exchanging area
and exergy efficiency.

Table 3: Boundary conditions

Boundary conditions Parameters

Exhaust temperature (°C) 391

Exhaust mass flow (kg/s) 0.23
Evaporate pressure (MPa) 3
Heat exchanger efficiency 0.9
Expander efficiency 0.65
Pump efficiency 0.8
Superheat degree (K) 40
Undercooling degree (K) 20
Evaporator PTD (K) 20
Condenser PTD (K) 20
Environment temperature (°C) 25
Recuperate rate 0.5
Figure 4: Heat exchanger test bench.
336  Da Li et al.
Figure 5: System optimization process.
Figure 6: Thermal efficiencies of ORC systems with different working
fluids.
the largest; recuperator will be less effective in the ethanol
system.
The energy flow and mass balances of the cyclopen-
tane ORC system are given in Figure 7. The configuration
of system units is given in Table 4. As shown in Table 4,
the exergy loss of the evaporator, 45.4%, is much higher
than other system components. While the recuperator,
though, has only slight direct influence on system exergy
loss, yet in Figure 7, has shown much influence on system
output, as it increased system thermal efficiency. There-
fore, these two components need specific analysis during
the ORC system working fluid selection.
3.2 Effect of heat source
The system exergy efficiency without recuperator at dif-
ferent exhaust temperature is shown in Figure 8. With
evaporate pressure fixed at 3 MPa, the exergy efficiency
of all systems increases as exhaust temperature increases.
At middle or high conditions, exhaust temperature of
conventional diesel engines is above 350°C. In this tem-
perature range, ORC system with ethanol, cyclopentane,
and cyclohexane all benefit from the large expansion
ratio, and ethanol system has the highest ORC system
exergy efficiency of 24.5% at 350°C. However, at lower
exhaust temperature, temperature difference within the
evaporator will inevitably be smaller; the three systems
with high evaporate temperature, though retained the
higher thermal efficiencies, cannot achieve complete heat
exchanging within the evaporator, due to design limita-
tion. For cyclohexane, with the highest evaporate tempera-
ture of the five working fluids, the decrease at low tempera-
ture is most significant; the exergy efficiency at 300°C
(8.6%) is only 37.8% of the exergy efficiency at 360°C
(22.9%). R245fa system and R1233zd system are less affected
by evaporator design limitation at low exhaust temperature.
However, both systems have significantly smaller exergy
efficiency at high temperature, mainly due to the high con-
densing pressure hindering the expansion process.
The exergy efficiency of ORC system with recuperator
at different exhaust temperature is shown in Figure 9. The
recuperate rate is fixed at 0.5. With exhaust temperature
above 350°C, the application of recuperator increased the
exergy efficiency of all five systems, yet to ethanol, the
only wet fluid of the five, the benefit is rather limited.
The exergy efficiency of cyclopentane system surpassed
ethanol system after the application of recuperator, and
the maximum exergy efficiency, 27.8%, occurred at 350°C.
As the recuperator increased the working fluid inlet tem-
perature of the evaporator, the temperature difference
will inevitably decrease; the exergy efficiency decrease
of systems with the three high evaporate temperature
fluid is more drastic. At 300°C, the exergy efficiency
of the recuperated cyclopentane ORC system (21.9%)
reduced to only 79.0% of the maximum efficiency, and
the exergy efficiency increase compared to system without
 Diesel engine waste heat recovery system comprehensive optimization  337

Figure 7: Energy flow of the cyclopentane ORC system.

Table 4: Configuration of system units

System unit (%) Evaporator Expander Condenser Pump Recuperator

Thermal efficiency 90 65 — 80 90
Heat loss 10 — — — 1.2
Exergy loss 45.4 8.6 14.5 1.3 2.5

Figure 8: ORC system (without recuperator) efficiency at different Figure 9: ORC system (with recuperator) efficiency at different
exhaust temperature. exhaust temperature.

recuperator is below 0.1%. The output of R245fa system
and R1233zd system also significantly benefited from the
recuperator, while the low evaporate temperature of the
two is advantageous at both low exhaust temperature and
increased recuperate rate, though the exergy efficiency at
high exhaust temperature is still rather low.
3.3 System complicity analysis
Before the detailed analysis of ORC system efficiency and
complicity, the arrangement of heat exchangers also
requires explanation. The application of recuperator will
increase the working fluid temperature at the evaporator
inlet, thus the evaporator, especially the preheating section,
needs comprehensive analysis along with the recuperator.
A certain heat exchanging core is used in both the
preheating section of the evaporator and the recuperator,
to evaluate the effect of the recuperator and the eva-
porator on the ORC system exergy efficiency. The pre-
heating section and the recuperator of the cyclopentane
ORC system both have fixed heat exchanging cores,
rather than achieving a preset pinch point temperature
difference or recuperate rate. The simulation result is
shown in Figure 10, with the amount of heat exchanging
338  Da Li et al.
Figure 10: Effect of heat exchanger optimization priority on ORC
system efficiency.
cores (E) in the preheating section of the evaporator and
the amount of heat exchanging cores (R) of the recup-
erator varies in each points. Of the simple cyclopentane
ORC system without recuperator, the amount of heat
exchanging cores in the preheating section of the eva-
porator is 3. On this basis, simply increase the core
amount of the recuperator, although the exergy efficiency
indeed increased accordingly, yet as the temperature
difference within the recuperator gradually decreases,
the thermal efficiency increase brought by additional
cores gradually decreases, and as the temperature of
the working fluid at the evaporator inlet increases, the
temperature difference in the preheating section decreases,
hindering the waste heat recovery of the evaporator, thus
the total increase of exergy efficiency is relatively limited.
When the total number of cores is 10, the exergy effi-
ciency is only increased by 7.09%. If the optimization
Figure 11: Comparison of simple ORC system with and without recuperator.
priority from the recuperator to the preheating section
is switched, the optimized scheme with seven heat
exchanging cores in the preheating section of the eva-
porator and three heat exchanging cores in the recup-
erator increased the system exergy efficiency by 14.59%,
which is 2.06 times of the comparison scheme. Therefore,
to optimize the heat exchangers of ORC system with
recuperator, achieve higher exergy efficiency and power
output with same or similar system complicity and cost;
the priority of the preheating section of the evaporator
should be higher than the recuperator.
The system exergy efficiency (light grey) and the total
heat exchanging area of the evaporator and the recup-
erator (dark grey) are shown in Figure 11. For ORC sys-
tems without recuperator, the ethanol system has the
highest exergy efficiency of 24.1%, while the cyclopen-
tane system achieved 96.4% efficiency of the ethanol
system, with only 85.2% of the heat exchanging area.
The R1233zd system also achieved 67.1% efficiency of
the ethanol system with only 58.5% of the heat exchan-
ging area, which is again better than the R245fa system,
yet the power output will be rather small. After the appli-
cation of recuperator, cyclopentane system still requires
only 98.7% heat exchanging area of the ethanol system,
while the exergy efficiency increased by 18.9%; therefore
the exergy efficiency, 27.6%, is also the highest of the five.
The exergy efficiency increase of recuperated ethanol
system, 9.0%, is the lowest of the five. In terms of both
complicity and efficiency, cyclohexane has no advantage
to either ethanol or cyclopentane.
With recuperate rate at 0.5, complicity of all systems
increased significantly as the heat exchanging area
increased, which is more significant for the R1233zd
system (574.7%) and the R245fa system (562.6%). The
 Diesel engine waste heat recovery system comprehensive optimization
increase of the cyclopentane system (197.7%), though
much smaller, is still rather large, compared to the exergy
efficiency increase of only 18.9%. The recuperate rate
can be further investigated and optimized, to achieve
higher system output without the need of complex heat
exchangers.
4 Conclusion
This paper constructed an ORC system simulation model,
and five working fluids were selected for comparison as
the working fluid of a simple diesel engine ORC system.
The quality of heat source, the quality of evaporator, the
system output, and the system complicity were taken as
variables for comparison. Of the five working fluids:
(1) For systems without recuperator, ethanol system has
the best system output of the five in a wide operation
temper range. However, at low heat source tempera-
ture, the output of cyclopentane system is higher
than the ethanol system. Also, as wet fluid, the recup-
erator is less effective for ethanol system. Cyclopentane
and cyclohexane have similar parameters, yet at most
conditions considered in this paper, the performance
of the cyclopentane system is better than the cyclo-
hexane system. The cyclopentane system has the best
exergy efficiency after the application of recuperator.
The system output of the R1233zd system is better
than the R245fa system, and both systems have better
performance at low temperature. Yet the exergy effi-
ciency is still limited compared to either the simple
ethanol system or the recuperate cyclopentane system,
and both systems have the disadvantage of high com-
plicity after the application of recuperator. The advan-
tage of low evaporate temperature can be better utilized
for low quality waste heat recovery.
(2) In the exhaust temperature range of 300–500°C,
ethanol and cyclopentane have better performance
than the other three. Without recuperator, the ethanol
system has the highest exergy efficiency of 24.1%,
while the cyclopentane system achieved 96.4% effi-
ciency of the ethanol system, with only 85.2% of the
heat exchanging area. After the application of recup-
erator, cyclopentane system has the highest exergy
efficiency of 27.6%, while requires only 98.7% heat
exchanging area of the ethanol system.
(3) At recuperate rate of 0.5, the system complicity in terms
of heat exchanging area of all five system increased
significantly, while the power output increase is limited
 339
compared to complicity increase. The recuperate rate of
ORC system requires further investigation.
Acknowledgement: I appreciate the reviewers for their
constructive and detailed critique contributed to the quality
of this paper. And I am also thankful to the editors for their
kind and helpful supports.
Funding information: This work was supported by the
National Key Research and Development Project of China
[grant numbers 2017YFB0103504].
Conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have
no conflicts of interest to report regarding the present
study.
Data availability statement: The datasets generated and
analyzed during the current study are available from the
corresponding authors on reasonable request.
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