Currently, improving energy efficiency becomes a main challenge for all industrial energy systems. This challenge involves an improved recovery of wasted heat generated by several industrial processes. Large energy savings and potential environmental benefits are associated with the use of industrial heat pump mainly at high temperature levels (>130°C) unavailable on the market. The development of high temperature heat pump using water vapor as working fluid is investigated. Technical problems restraining the feasibility of this industrial heat pump are surmounted by a specifically designed heat pump, the development of a new twin screw compressor and a new centrifugal compressor with magnetic bearings. A dynamic model of this heat pump is developed using Modelica and taking into account the presence of non-condensable gases in the machine. Detailed models of the compressors are developed based on their geometrical characteristics. Experimental results of the start-up phase have been presented showing the non-condensable purging process and the evolution of some parameters of the heat pump. These experimental results have been confronted to numerical simulations. Several scenarios of industrial processes for high-temperature heat recovery and heat upgrading are numerically simulated and analyzed based on energetic and exergetic studies. The heat pump model has been integrated to a distillation column showing the global energy savings and the environmental benefits of using this developed heat pump.
