Waste heat is generated by industrial processes and machinery, but can be recovered through cost-effective techniques such as waste heat recovery boilers and heat tube exchangers. This form of recycling reduces fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. Waste heat recovery systems are being developed for cars and ships to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
Waste heat is thermal energy that is commonly discarded after being created as a by-product of industrial processes and work machinery of all kinds, including appliances and automobiles. Waste heat recovery can be done in several ways, but the techniques are limited by the need to be cost effective in order to be commercially viable. A successful example is the waste heat recovery boiler, which can be located on top of heat-generating equipment to generate steam that can drive electricity generators.
There are many ways that waste heat can be lost, including through flue gases, heat loss from pipes, boiler exhaust, and warm air discharged from heated spaces. Only if heat can be used to good advantage can it cease to be called waste. Possible uses include heating water, producing steam to drive turbines and heating public spaces. Fluid filled tubes, called heat tube exchangers, are capable of transferring heat and are used in situations where the hot exhaust from furnaces, furnaces and boilers can be recovered and used to heat air or water. So-called heat recovery boilers often transform the heat from combustion, for example in engines or incinerators, to form steam or to heat water or other fluids.
Waste heat recovery systems can be viewed as a form of recycling, where heat energy is extracted from an industrial process and fed back into the system, reducing overall fossil fuel use. Most of the waste heat created by industry is in the form of gases or liquids, and where processes occur at extremely high temperatures, such as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (about 983 degrees Celsius) and above, as much as half the energy used to drive the original process can be lost as waste heat. Using a waste heat recovery system, a large part of the energy lost can instead be used as energy, decreasing the financial cost and consumption of fossil fuels involved in the operation of the equipment and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and pollutants into the atmosphere .
The development of waste heat recovery systems for cars and ships is already underway. What is known as a thermoelectric generator is manufactured for automobiles. It is a unit that converts the car’s waste heat into electricity, providing all the electricity it needs while improving fuel efficiency at the same time. A similar method, by turning waste heat from ships into an onboard supply of electricity, could reduce their huge greenhouse gas emissions while also reducing fuel consumption.
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