The heating value (or energy value or calorific value) of a substance, usually a fuel or food (see food energy), is the amount of heat released during the combustion of a specified amount of it.
The calorific value is the total energy released as heat when a substance undergoes complete combustion with oxygen under standard conditions. The chemical reaction is typically a hydrocarbon or other organic molecule reacting with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water and release heat. It may be expressed with the quantities:
There are two kinds of enthalpy of combustion, called high(er) and low(er) heat(ing) value, depending on how much the products are allowed to cool and whether compounds like are allowed to condense. The high heat values are conventionally measured with a bomb calorimeter. Low heat values are calculated from high heat value test data. They may also be calculated as the difference between the heat of formation Δ H of the products and reactants (though this approach is somewhat artificial since most heats of formation are typically calculated from measured heats of combustion).
For a fuel of composition C cH hO oN n, the (higher) heat of combustion is usually to a good approximation (±3%), Dlugogorski, B. Z.; Mawhinney, J. R.; Duc, V. H. (1994). "The Measurement of Heat Release Rates by Oxygen Consumption Calorimetry in Fires Under Suppression". Fire Safety Science 1007: 877. though it gives poor results for some compounds such as (gaseous) formaldehyde and carbon monoxide, and can be significantly off if , such as for glycerine dinitrate, .It gives 545 kJ/mole, whereas the value calculated from heats of formation is around 1561 kJ/mole. For glycerine trinitrate (nitroglycerine) it gives 0, though nitroglycerine does not actually combust.
By convention, the (higher) heat of combustion is defined to be the heat released for the complete combustion of a compound in its standard state to form stable products in their standard states: hydrogen is converted to water (in its liquid state), carbon is converted to carbon dioxide gas, and nitrogen is converted to nitrogen gas. That is, the heat of combustion, Δ H°comb, is the heat of reaction of the following process:
Chlorine and sulfur are not quite standardized; they are usually assumed to convert to hydrogen chloride gas and or gas, respectively, or to dilute aqueous hydrochloric and , respectively, when the combustion is conducted in a bomb calorimeter containing some quantity of water.
HHV kJ/g= 33.87mC + 122.3(mH − mO ÷ 8) + 9.4mS
where mC, mH, mO, mN, and mS are the contents of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and sulfur on any (wet, dry or ash free) basis, respectively.
LHV calculations assume that the water component of a combustion process is in vapor state at the end of combustion, as opposed to the higher heating value (HHV) (a.k.a. gross calorific value or gross CV) which assumes that all of the water in a combustion process is in a liquid state after a combustion process.
Another definition of the LHV is the amount of heat released when the products are cooled to . This means that the latent heat of vaporization of water and other reaction products is not recovered. It is useful in comparing fuels where condensation of the combustion products is impractical, or heat at a temperature below cannot be put to use.
One definition of lower heating value, adopted by the American Petroleum Institute (API), uses a reference temperature of .
Another definition, used by Gas Processors Suppliers Association (GPSA) and originally used by API (data collected for API research project 44), is the enthalpy of all combustion products minus the enthalpy of the fuel at the reference temperature (API research project 44 used 25 °C. GPSA currently uses 60 °F), minus the enthalpy of the stoichiometry oxygen (O2) at the reference temperature, minus the heat of vaporization of the vapor content of the combustion products.
The definition in which the combustion products are all returned to the reference temperature is more easily calculated from the higher heating value than when using other definitions and will in fact give a slightly different answer.
When the lower heating value (LHV) is determined, cooling is stopped at 150 °C and the reaction heat is only partially recovered. The limit of 150 °C is based on acid gas dew-point.
Note: Higher heating value (HHV) is calculated with the product of water being in liquid form while lower heating value (LHV) is calculated with the product of water being in vapor form.
A common method of relating HHV to LHV is:
The difference between HHV and LHV definitions causes endless confusion when quoters do not bother to state the convention being used. since there is typically a 10% difference between the two methods for a power plant burning natural gas. For simply benchmarking part of a reaction the LHV may be appropriate, but HHV should be used for overall energy efficiency calculations if only to avoid confusion, and in any case, the value or convention should be clearly stated.
+ Higher (HHV) and lower (LHV) heating values of some common fuels at 25 °C ! rowspan=2 | Fuel ! colspan=3 | HHV ! LHV |
119.96 | ||
50.00 | ||
47.62 | ||
46.35 | ||
45.75 | ||
45.35 | ||
41.50 | ||
43.00 | ||
44.1 | ||
43.4 | ||
17.0 | ||
+Higher heating value of some less common fuels ! Fuel !! megajoule/kg !! BTU/lb !! kilojoule/mol |
726 |
1,367 |
2,020 |
1,300 |
3,268 |
382.6 |
622.0 |
4,200.0 |
393.5 |
+Lower heating value for some organic compounds (at ) ! Fuel ! megajoule/kg ! megajoule/liter ! BTU/lb ! Joule/mol | ||||
Methane | 50.009 | 6.9 | 21,504 | 802.34 |
Ethane | 47.794 | — | 20,551 | 1,437.2 |
Propane | 46.357 | 25.3 | 19,934 | 2,044.2 |
Butane | 45.752 | — | 19,673 | 2,659.3 |
Pentane | 45.357 | 28.39 | 21,706 | 3,272.6 |
Hexane | 44.752 | 29.30 | 19,504 | 3,856.7 |
Heptane | 44.566 | 30.48 | 19,163 | 4,465.8 |
Octane | 44.427 | — | 19,104 | 5,074.9 |
Nonane | 44.311 | 31.82 | 19,054 | 5,683.3 |
Decane | 44.240 | 33.29 | 19,023 | 6,294.5 |
Undecane | 44.194 | 32.70 | 19,003 | 6,908.0 |
Dodecane | 44.147 | 33.11 | 18,983 | 7,519.6 |
Isobutane | 45.613 | — | 19,614 | 2,651.0 |
Isopentane | 45.241 | 27.87 | 19,454 | 3,264.1 |
2-Methylpentane | 44.682 | 29.18 | 19,213 | 3,850.7 |
2,3-Dimethylbutane | 44.659 | 29.56 | 19,203 | 3,848.7 |
2,3-Dimethylpentane | 44.496 | 30.92 | 19,133 | 4,458.5 |
2,2,4-Trimethylpentane | 44.310 | 30.49 | 19,053 | 5,061.5 |
Cyclopentane | 44.636 | 33.52 | 19,193 | 3,129.0 |
Methylcyclopentane | 44.636? | 33.43? | 19,193? | 3,756.6? |
Cyclohexane | 43.450 | 33.85 | 18,684 | 3,656.8 |
Methylcyclohexane | 43.380 | 33.40 | 18,653 | 4,259.5 |
Ethylene | 47.195 | — | — | — |
Propylene | 45.799 | — | — | — |
1-Butene | 45.334 | — | — | — |
cis-2-Butene | 45.194 | — | — | — |
trans-2-Butene | 45.124 | — | — | — |
Isobutene | 45.055 | — | — | — |
1-Pentene | 45.031 | — | — | — |
2-Methyl-1-pentene | 44.799 | — | — | — |
1-Hexene | 44.426 | — | — | — |
1,3-Butadiene | 44.613 | — | — | — |
Isoprene | 44.078 | - | — | — |
Nitromethane | 10.513 | — | — | — |
Nitropropane | 20.693 | — | — | — |
Acetylene | 48.241 | — | — | — |
Methylacetylene | 46.194 | — | — | — |
1-Butyne | 45.590 | — | — | — |
1-Pentyne | 45.217 | — | — | — |
Benzene | 40.170 | — | — | — |
Toluene | 40.589 | — | — | — |
o-Xylene | 40.961 | — | — | — |
m-Xylene | 40.961 | — | — | — |
p-Xylene | 40.798 | — | — | — |
Ethylbenzene | 40.938 | — | — | — |
1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene | 40.984 | — | — | — |
N-Propylbenzene | 41.193 | — | — | — |
Cumene | 41.217 | — | — | — |
Methanol | 19.930 | 15.78 | 8,570 | 638.6 |
Ethanol | 26.70 | 22.77 | 12,412 | 1,230.1 |
1-Propanol | 30.680 | 24.65 | 13,192 | 1,843.9 |
Isopropanol | 30.447 | 23.93 | 13,092 | 1,829.9 |
n-Butanol | 33.075 | 26.79 | 14,222 | 2,501.6 |
Isobutanol | 32.959 | 26.43 | 14,172 | 2,442.9 |
Tert-butanol | 32.587 | 25.45 | 14,012 | 2,415.3 |
n-Pentanol | 34.727 | 28.28 | 14,933 | 3,061.2 |
Isoamyl alcohol | 31.416? | 35.64? | 13,509? | 2,769.3? |
Methoxymethane | 28.703 | — | 12,342 | 1,322.3 |
Ethoxyethane | 33.867 | 24.16 | 14,563 | 2,510.2 |
Propoxypropane | 36.355 | 26.76 | 15,633 | 3,568.0 |
Butoxybutane | 37.798 | 28.88 | 16,253 | 4,922.4 |
Formaldehyde | 17.259 | — | — | 570.78 |
Acetaldehyde | 24.156 | — | — | — |
Propionaldehyde | 28.889 | — | — | — |
Butyraldehyde | 31.610 | — | — | — |
Acetone | 28.548 | 22.62 | — | — |
Graphite | 32.808 | — | — | — |
Hydrogen | 120.971 | 1.8 | 52,017 | 244 |
Carbon monoxide | 10.112 | — | 4,348 | 283.24 |
Ammonia | 18.646 | — | 8,018 | 317.56 |
Sulfur (solid) | 9.163 | — | 3,940 | 293.82 |
The lower heating value of natural gas is normally about 90% of its higher heating value. This table is in Standard cubic metres (1atm, 15°C), to convert to values per Normal cubic metre (1atm, 0°C), multiply above table by 1.0549.
|
|