In the present study, a subcritical and supercritical regenerative organic Rankine cycle (rORC) was designed. The designed rORCs assist a combined heat and power (CHP) engine, the fuel of which is biogas produced from anaerobic digestion of domestic wastes in Belgium. R245fa was selected as the working fluid for both the subcritical and supercritical rORC. During the parametric optimisation, the net power production, mass flow rate, exchanged heat in the regenerator, total pump power consumption, thermal and exergetic efficiencies of rORC were calculated for varying turbine inlet temperatures and pressures. After parametric optimisation of the rORC, the results were compared with the results of the previous study, in which only a simple ORC is analysed and parametrically optimised. Moreover, the effect of the regenerator was revealed by examining all results together. Finally, the exergetic analysis of the best performing subcritical and supercritical rORC was performed. Furthermore, the results of the present and previous studies were considered together and it is clearly seen that the subcritical rORC shows the best performance. Consequently, by using the subcritical rORC, the disadvantages of the using simple ORC (low performance) and supercritical cycle (safety, investment) can be eliminated and system performance can be improved.

An organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is set up to recover waste heat from the flue gas of a reheat furnace. The calculations show that, under the same conditions, the gross power production, energy and exergy efficiencies are 490.63 kW, 16.62% and 35.64% for ORC with cyclohexane and 457.83 kW, 17.08% and 31.96% for ORC with toluene, respectively. After the comparison of working fluids, the ORC with cyclohexane was optimised at different turbine inlet pressures (from 26 bar to 38 bar) and turbine inlet temperatures (from 260°C to 320°C). The best performance of the cycle is obtained at the turbine inlet pressure of 38 bar and turbine inlet temperature of 280°C. The gross power production, energy and exergy efficiencies were evaluated as 527.67 kW, 17.65% and 37.37%, respectively, for optimised ORC with cyclohexane.