Design and modelling of a heat recovery cycle and turbine for a low temperature hydrogen fuel cell

This thesis examines the viability of waste heat recovery from a small scale, low temperature hydrogen fuel cell, to generate additional power using a thermodynamic cycle and micro-turbine. It investigates the optimal fluid selection for an organic Rankine cycle and models a radial inflow turbine to generate power from the cycle, which was able to improve the efficiency of the fuel cell by 5%. This work optimises the cycle and turbine designs to match the operating conditions and achieve the highest efficiency and validates the result using 3D fluid simulations