Exergoeconomic Analyses of a Cement Plant Waste Heat Recovery in a Novel Combined Power and Refrigeration Cycle Bourhan Tashtoush 1* , Karima Megdouli 2 , Towhid Gholizadeh 3 , Elhadi Dekam 4 1 Mechanical Engineering Department, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid 22110, Jordan 2 Unité de Recherche Energétique et Environnent, Ecole National d’ingénieur de Tunis, 37 Le Belvédère, Tunis 1002, Tunisie 3 Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil 56199-11367, Iran 4 Faculty of Engineering, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department, University of Tripoli, Tripoli 31121, Libya Corresponding Author Email: bourhan@just.edu.jo https://doi.org/10.18280/ijdne.160302 ABSTRACT Received: 13 July 2020 Accepted: 22 May 2021 To reduce fossil fuel consumption and its polluted environmental impact, a new enhanced waste heat recovery system operated by hot chimney flue gases from a cement plant is designed, analyzed, and evaluated. The configuration of the system is competitive and innovative. It is designed to be capable of producing space air cooling and electricity generation, simultaneously. Three temperature levels in the proposed cycle are considered, and a detailed mathematical model is developed with energy, exergy, and economic aspects are considered to achieve the best performance of the system. Computer FORTRAN subroutines are developed and run for simulation of several scenarios. A comprehensive parametric investigation and thermo-economic analysis are conducted and presented. It was found that the optimistic recovery system can achieve a refrigeration load coverage of 300 kW, while the energy and exergy efficiencies are 36.23% and 29.41%, respectively. The anticipated system seems to be optimistic knowing the cost of the product is estimated to be $45.97 per GJ. Keywords: energy, exergy, exergoeconomic, triple- evaporator, waste recovery systems 1. INTRODUCTION Industrial energy consumption constitutes more than 30% of the produced energy, and carbon dioxide production accounts for more than 5%. The cement production industry consumes a large portion of this energy, which attracted the attention of researchers to reduce the amount of energy consumed and mitigate carbon dioxide emissions. The creation of innovative solutions to supply the increase in demand for energy sustainably and cleanly to reduce environmental impact has been the focus of the research community for decades [1-3]. Different heat utilization methods were investigated to improve the system; energy efficiency [4-6]. The global warming process is a type of climate change that humanity has not yet overcome. Therefore, it is necessary to find out an ecological alternative that replaces conventional fuels, offers better performance, and achieves sustainability [7-10]. Renewable energy sources, waste material sources, and waste heat may be desirable choices to serve such issues. In fact, the recovery of industrial exhaust flue gases waste heat can be invested not only to generate electricity or heat water or gain a refrigerated capacity, but also to reduce exhaust toxic emissions, and therefore, reduce the pollution of the environment [10, 11]. It is important to improve the system’s energy efficiency in the manufacturing industry and reduce its dependability on fossil fuels since it consumes a large portion of worldwide energy [12, 13]. Experimental works were conducted on combined power cycles with the utilization of waste energy [14, 15]. This could be achieved by either enhancing the energy efficiency or increasing the use of renewable energies and waste heat [16-18]. The smart usage of renewable energies is the focus of many researchers to mitigate carbon dioxide and greenhouse emissions and reduce the impact on the environment. Many attempts had been made to design new sustainable systems and thermal cycles with better thermal efficiency [19-21]. Several research works have been done to study the performance of recovery-based systems employing waste heat from industrial plants and converted it into work, power, and cooling without supplying any additional fuel and with zero associated CO2 emissions. A thermo-economic analysis of a combined inverted Brayton/Organic Rankine cycle to utilize waste heat to generate mechanical power was presented [22]. The authors performed an optimization of the cycle and examined the performance of several working fluids. The organic Rankine cycle is known as the most promising potential technology in the application of heat recovery achievements in many theoretical and experimental research [23]. Combined power and cold generation cycles using a solar parabolic trough system were proposed and investigated [24]. They have studied the effects of the evaporation pressure and condensation temperature on the thermal efficiency of the introduced system. An energy-saving scheme to recover the waste heat from vehicles by the integration of an ORC was introduced [25]. A multi-objective optimization model was developed to analyze the cycle performance and economy with different refrigerants. The utilization of the waste heat in a cement plant was studied International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics Vol. 16, No. 3, June, 2021, pp. 251-260 Journal homepage: http://iieta.org/journals/ijdne 251