Advanced Study on Supercritical Fluids in Innovative Technologies Application

众所周知，电力工业是任何其他工业、农业和生活水平进步的关键工业。电力能源生产的主要来源有：1)动力煤（一次）和天然气（二次）；2)核能和3)水力。因此，提高热电厂和核电站的热效率是非常重要的。由于超临界压力和温度，燃煤电厂的热效率达到了43-53%。然而，现代水冷式核电站的热效率在30-36%之间。目前，世界各地正在开发6种热效率接近现代火力发电厂的第四代反应堆概念。不幸的是，加拿大只有一个超临界燃煤电厂（在这种情况下，远远落后于许多发达国家），并且只开发一个概念-超临界水冷堆（SCWR）。因此，参与开发更高运行参数的现代燃煤电厂和其他第四代反应堆概念对加拿大研究人员来说是一项非常重要的任务。对这些概念的分析表明，总的来说，它们都可以通过热交换器连接到超临界朗肯蒸汽循环（50年以上的动力循环）或超临界二氧化碳布雷顿燃气轮机循环。此外，超临界二氧化碳和制冷剂可用于先进的空调/制冷循环或作为模拟流体代替水在热工水力实验。拟进行的研究目标是：1)深入研究超临界流体在不同流动几何形状下的传热和压降；2)发展先进的燃煤和核电站超临界循环和热交换器；3)支持加拿大SCW CANDU反应堆的发展；4)将SCWRs与热化学循环连接起来，用于热电联产氢。所有这些研究将使加拿大在世界科学和工程的几个主要领域处于领先地位。此外，将在这些区域内准备一些HQP。

It is well known that the power industry is a key industry for advances in any other industries, agriculture and level of living. Main sources for electrical-energy production are: 1) thermal - coal (primary) and natural gas (secondary); 2) nuclear and 3) hydro. Therefore, it is very important to increase thermal efficiency of thermal and Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Coal-fired power plants have reached thermal efficiencies of 43-53% due to supercritical pressures and temperatures. However, modern water-cooled NPPs have thermal efficiencies within a range of 30-36%. Currently, 6 concepts of Generation IV reactors with thermal efficiencies close to those of modern thermal power plants are being developed around the world. Unfortunately, Canada has only 1 supercritical coal-fired power plant (in this case, being far behind many developed countries) and is developing only 1 concept - SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactor (SCWR). Therefore, participating in development of modern coal-fired power plants with even higher operating parameters and other Geneneration IV reactor concepts is a very important task for Canadian researchers. Analysis of these concepts showed that in general, all of them can be connected to supercritical Rankine steam cycle (the power cycle proven for more than 50 years) or supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton gas-turbine cycle through heat exchangers. Also, supercritical carbon dioxide and refrigerants can be used in advanced air-conditioning/refrigeration cycles or as modeling fluids instead of water in thermalhydraulic experiments. Objectives of the proposed research are: 1) advanced studies on supercritical fluids heat transfer and pressure drop in various flow geometries; 2) developing advanced coal-fired and NPPs supercritical cycles and heat exchangers; 3) support to SCW CANDU reactor development in Canada; 4) linking SCWRs with thermochemical cycles for co-generation of hydrogen. All these studies will bring Canada to leading positions within several major areas of science and engineering in the world. Also, a number of HQP will be prepared within these areas.