Title: Exergy analysis and purging of an ammonia storage system

Authors: Ahmet Ozan Gezerman

Addresses: Faculty of Chemistry-Metallurgy, Department of Chemical Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul 34210, Turkey

Abstract: This paper proposes a method for purging a large-volume ammonia storage facility without the production of environmental contaminants. The properties of the evaporator used to gasify the nitrogen for purging the ammonia are described, and exergy analyses of the system and the chemical reaction between the ammonia and water are performed. Based on the analytical results, the optimal fin size and pipe diameter of the evaporator are determined to be 5-8 cm and 2.5-6.5 cm, respectively. The chemical exergy of the reaction between the ammonia and water is determined to be 328.7 kJ/mol. Moreover, it is determined that the exergy loss of the system is equal to the evaporator exergy loss. The exergy efficiency of the finned tube evaporator of the system is determined to be 28%. The obtained results confirm that the purging of an ammonia storage system using nitrogen gas can be efficiently accomplished using an existing finned tube evaporator.

Keywords: ammonia purging; nitrogen gasification; ammonia storage; chemical exergy; finned tube evaporators; exergy analysis; fin size; pipe diameter; exergy loss; exergy efficiency.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2015.070502

International Journal of Exergy, 2015 Vol.17 No.3, pp.335 - 351

Received: 16 Nov 2013
Accepted: 22 Jun 2014
Published online: 08 Jul 2015 *

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