Thermodynamic analysis of a dual-pressure evaporation high-temperature heat pump with low GWP zeotropic mixtures for steam generation

High-temperature heat pumps (HTHPs) have gained attention due to their economic and environmental benefits in utilizing industrial waste heat for steam generation. This study focuses on improving the HTHPs’ performance by employing two-stage separation and dual-pressure evaporation technology in the auto-cascade heat pump cycle. Additionally, binary zeotropic refrigerant mixtures with low-GWP are selected using the polar perturbed-chain statistical associated fluid theory (PC-SAFT) equation of state. The findings indicate that the R1234ze(E)&R1233zd(E) refrigerant mixture outperforms other potential alternatives, exhibiting a thermodynamic effectiveness 0.85%–1.86% higher than the benchmark mixture, R134a&R245fa. The improved cycle demonstrates significant enhancements, achieving a 45.17% increase in heat source utilization efficiency and a 24.48% improvement in COP compared to the basic auto-cascade cycle. Effective temperature matching between refrigerant mixtures and heat sources/sinks is guaranteed in the improved cycle. Moreover, a parameter analysis reveals that increasing the subcooling degree of the cascaded heat exchanger and the separation dryness fraction at separator 2 enables improvements in both COP and heat source utilization efficiency. These findings provide valuable insights into the design of steam generation heat pumps and the selection of refrigerant mixtures.