Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) is used, amongst the others, in geothermal facilities, in waste heat recovery or in domestic combined heat and power (CHP) generation. The paper presents optimization of an idealized ORC equivalent of the Carnot cycle with non-zero temperature difference in heat exchangers and with energy dissipation caused by the viscous fluid flow. In this analysis the amount of heat outgoing from the ORC is given. Such a case corresponds to the application of an ORC in domestic CHP. This assumption is different from the most of ORC models where the incoming amount of heat is given.

The paper presents a thermodynamic optimization of supercritical coal fired power plant. The aim of the study was to optimize part of the thermal cycle consisted of high-pressure turbine and two chosen highpressure feed water heaters. Calculations were carried out using IPSEpro software combined with MATLAB, where thermal efficiency and gross power generation efficiency were chosen as objective functions. It was shown that the optimization with newly developed framework is sufficiently precise and its main advantage is the reduction of computation time on comparison to the classical method. The calculations have shown the tendency of the increase in efficiency, with the rise of a number of function variables.

In order to recover the low grade waste heat and increase system fuel economy for main engine 10S90ME-C9.2-TII(part load, exhaust gas bypass) installed on a 10000 TEU container ship, a non-cogeneration and single-pressure type of waste heat recovery system based on organic Rankine cycle is proposed. Organic compound candidates appropriate to the system are analyzed and selected. Thermodynamic model of the whole system and thermoeconomic optimization are performed. The saturated organic compound vapor mass flow rate, net electric power output, pinch point, thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency varied with different evaporating temperature are thermodynamically analyzed. The results of thermodynamic and thermoeconomic optimization indicate that the most appropriate organic compound candidate is R141b due to its highest exergy efficiency, biggest unit cost benefit and shortest payback time.