Patent ID: 8225607

Claim:
A method of utilizing waste-heat of a system, the system comprising: a stationary or mobile combustion apparatus; vane-cell machines, each of the vane-cell machines comprising: a housing; wherein the housing has a largely cylindrical space for receiving the vane cells of the vane-cell machine and also an inlet port and an outlet port in the cylindrical space, a shaft arranged eccentrically in the housing, with a first and a second guide plate arranged essentially parallel to one another on the shaft, slides guided by the first and the second guide plates and displaceable essentially radially with respect to the shaft in the direction of an inner wall of the housing, a plurality of vane cells, each of the plurality of the vane cells being formed in each case by two adjacent slides and an adjacent region of the inner wall of the housing, a volume of said each of the plurality of the vane cells in a region of the inlet port differing from a volume of said each of the plurality of the vane cells in a region of the outlet port, wherein the slides are displaceable radially in the direction of the inner wall of the housing are guided by at least one of a first continuous guide track and a second continuous guide track, wherein each of the first continuous guide track and the second continuous guide track is at a fixed location with respect to the housing; wherein said at least one of a first continuous guide track and a second continuous guide track limits the movement of the slides displaceable radially in the direction of the inner wall of the housing; and wherein each of the slides faces the inner wall of the housing, and wherein at an end face of the slide, said each of the slides moves, free of contact, along an entire path of movement, and past the inner wall of the housing; the method comprising the steps of: supplying exhaust gas from the stationary or mobile combustion apparatus to a first heat transfer device and to an exhaust gas turbocharger, compressing air at ambient pressure with a first one of the vane-cell machines and supplying the compressed air to the first heat transfer device wherein heat energy contained in the exhaust gas is transferred to the compressed air, expanding the compressed and heated air with a second one of the vane-cell machines to a pressure being lower than the pressure of at least one of the exhaust gas from the combustion apparatus and the pressure of the exhaust gas at the outlet of the exhaust gas turbocharger, directing the expanded air and the exhaust gas leaving at least one of the heat transfer device and the exhaust gas turbocharger to a third one of vane-cell machines, and simultaneously expanding the mixture of exhaust gas and air to ambient pressure with third one of the vane-cell machines.