Advanced Studies on Supercritical Fluids in Innovative Technologies Applications

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It is well known that the electrical-power generation is the key factor for advances in any other industries, agriculture and level of living. Main sources for electricity production are: 1) thermal - primary coal and secondary - natural gas; 2) nuclear and 3) hydro. Modern combined-cycle power plants have reached gross thermal efficiencies about 62%, which is the highest level in the power industry. However, modern coal-fired power plants have gross thermal efficiencies about 43-53% and modern water-cooled Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) - only about 30-36%. Therefore, it is very important to increase thermal efficiencies of coal-fired and NPPs. This increase is possible due to application of: 1) Ultra-supercritical pressures and temperatures in coal-fired power plants, and 2) Supercritical steam Rankine cycle and supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton gas-turbine cycle as power cycles in the next generation or Generation IV NPPs. In this case, participating in development of ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants and other Generation IV NPPs is a very important task for Canadian researchers. Analysis of Generation IV NPPs showed that in general, all of them can be connected to supercritical steam Rankine cycle or supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton gas-turbine cycle through heat exchangers. In addition, Generation IV NPPs can co-generate hydrogen through thermochemical cycles. However, these hydrogen co-generating plants should be safely connected to NPPs through intermediate heat exchangers. Also, supercritical carbon dioxide and refrigerants can be used as working fluids in other applications (airconditioning, geothermal plants, etc.) or as modeling fluids instead of water in various heat-transfer experiments. All these activities require solid knowledge of supercritical fluids specifics and heat transfer, which is the objective of the proposed research.