Icarus

Creating an absorption system to generate power from waste heat in industrial settings

Overview

The aim of ICARUS was to create innovative and environmentally friendly CO2/lubricant absorption technology for power generation from low temperature industrial waste heat to reduce emissions and costs.

The ICARUS project aimed to create absorption power generation technology for low temperature (60-120C) heat. This enables the consortium to create a waste-heat power generation system for industrial (chemical and cement) applications. By doing this, the absorption power generation system created will offer greatly improved environmental performance due to improved efficiency and reduced CO2 emissions at a cost that is affordable to the end-user. This will lead to significant economic and societal benefits to manufacturers.

â€‹The SME consortium will target up to 10% of the EU manufacturing SMEs operating within the Chemicals and Cement Industry within a 5 year period.

Project end date

July 2014

Aims

Efficiency of up to 20% for electricity to be generated from industrial waste heat (<120C) without affecting industrial processes
Reduced CO2 emissions
700 new jobs
Manufacturing SMEs to make annual average CO2 emissions savings of up to 4,000 t p.a per company

Partners

Results

The Icarus project resulted in a final 5kW prototype designed around a refrigerant based Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power generation system.
The test results indicate that if specified technical issues can be successfully resolved then a commercial 20kW unit or larger would be viable and the anticipated pay-back time for a potential user being 1 year and 5 months for a 20kW unit. In addition, the unit would be more environmentally friendly as it would make a significant positive impact on GHG emissions in terms of CO2.
The project partners would like to thank the EC FP7 programme for its assistance and funding, the project would not have been possible without their support.