234 Geothermal Power Plants: Principles, Applications, Case Studies and Environmental Impact

Note that this amounts to only 5.4% of the total exergy given up by the brine.
The exergy efficiencies may now be found for the heat exchanger as a whole and for
the evaporator and preheater sections separately. The results are shown in the
table below.

Efficiency Formula Value

ηIIHXer;BF _ 1 e2 1 m
ðm _ a eb Þ=ðm
_ 1 e1 1 m
_ a ea Þ 0.9221

ηIIHXer;FUN1 _ 1 ðe2 2 e1 Þ=m

m _ a ðea 2 eb Þ 0.8216

ηIIHXer;FUN2 _ 1 ðe2 2 e1 Þ=m

m _ a ea 0.4793

ηIIPH;BF _ 1 ey 1 m
ðm _ a eb Þ=ðm
_ 1 e1 1 m
_ a ez Þ 0.9509

ηIIPH;FUN1 _ 1 ðey 2 e1 Þ=m

m _ a ðez 2 eb Þ 0.7674

ηIIPH;FUN2 _ 1 ðey 2 e1 Þ=m

m _ a ez 0.1693

ηIIE;BF _ 1 e2 1 m
ðm _ a ez Þ=ðm
_ 1 ey 1 m
_ a ea Þ 0.9616

ηIIE;FUN1 _ 1 ðe2 2 ey Þ=m

m _ a ðea 2 ez Þ 0.8500

The brute-force and the first functional efficiency indicate a reasonable performance;
the second functional efficiency is very poor because we do not attribute any exergetic
value to the brine as it leaves the unit. This is probably not a good basis for judgment
since the brine does return to the reservoir and may eventually return to the plant after
reheating in the formation. In the case of the evaporator, the second functional effi-
ciency does not apply since the brine immediately passes to the preheater.
We can calculate the log mean temperature differences for the heat exchanger as a
whole and for each section using eq. (8.12). The results are as follows:
LMTDHXer 5 34:3 C; LMTDPH 5 16:5 C; LMTDE 5 14:0 C
It will be noted that the brute-force exergy efficiencies vary inversely with the LMTD
values, i.e., the smaller the LMTD, the closer the match between the heating and cool-
ing curves, the lower the thermodynamic irreversibility, and the higher the efficiency
of exergy transfer.
Numerical example
Mixed working fluid condenser: One of the advantages of using a
mixture as the working fluid in a binary plant is the fact that the mixture changes
phase at variable temperature instead of isothermally as does a pure fluid. Consider
the case of a 10% isopentane-90% isobutane mixture condensing against cooling
water. The properties of the mixture are available courtesy of the National Institute of
Standards (NIST), the successor to the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in Ref. [7].
In this example we will assume the working fluid mixture enters the condenser at
its dew point (i.e., the first drop of liquid is about to form) and leaves at its bubble
point (i.e., the last bubble of vapor has just condensed). We will take the mixture pres-
sure to be 0.50 MPa and assume the mass flow rate is 1 kg/s (i.e., we will solve the
problem per unit mass flow rate of working fluid). The cooling water enters the con-
denser at 25 C and leaves at 40 C. Water properties will be taken from Ref. [6].
The dead state is assumed to be 20 C 5 293.15 K.