Articles & Issues
- Language
- English
- Conflict of Interest
- In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.
- Publication history
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Received December 28, 2025
Revised February 28, 2026
Accepted March 13, 2026
Available online July 25, 2026
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This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits
unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Simulation and Optimization Research of a Two-Stage Organic Rankine Cycle System Based on LNG Cold Energy Recovery
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11814-026-00709-z
Abstract
This study aims to maximize cold energy utilization during liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification and enhance system
energy efficiency. A two-stage organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system was simulated in Aspen HYSYS software, with
synergistic optimization of the four-component working fluid (R50/R170/R290/R600a) composition and key operating
parameters (evaporation/condensation pressures). Thermodynamic and economic performance of four schemes were compared:
baseline case, two HYSYS-optimized cases and genetic algorithm (GA)-optimized case. The results show that heat
exchangers dominated exergy destruction (baseline case: 75.62%, HYSYS-optimized (three-component) case: 56.88%,
HYSYS-optimized (four-component) case: 55.10%, GA-optimized case: 62.88%), demonstrating that the working fluid
optimization significantly improves heat transfer matching of heat exchangers. In the GA-optimized case, the net power
generation of two-stage ORC system can reach 154.56 kW, with an exergy efficiency of 37%. Additionally, the system
exhibits good economic feasibility, with a levelized energy cost (LEC) of 0.08 $/kWh and a payback period (PBP) of
5.95 years.
