Advanced Studies on Supercritical Fluids in Innovative Technologies Applications

众所周知，发电是任何其他工业、农业进步和生活水平提高的关键因素。发电的主要来源有：1)热力煤和二次天然气；2)核能和3)水力。现代联合循环电厂的总热效率已达到62%左右，是电力行业的最高水平。然而，现代燃煤电厂的总热效率约为43-53%，而现代水冷核电站（NPPs）仅为30-36%。因此，提高燃煤和核电站的热效率是非常重要的。这种增加可能是由于：1)超超临界压力和温度在燃煤电厂的应用，以及2)超临界蒸汽朗肯循环和超临界二氧化碳布雷顿燃气轮机循环作为下一代或第四代核电站的动力循环。在这种情况下，参与超超临界燃煤电厂和其他第四代核电站的开发是加拿大研究人员的一项非常重要的任务。对第四代核电站的分析表明，一般情况下，它们都可以通过热交换器连接到超临界蒸汽朗肯循环或超临界二氧化碳布雷顿燃气轮机循环。此外，第四代核电站可以通过热化学循环共产氢。然而，这些氢气联产厂应该通过中间热交换器安全地连接到核电站。此外，超临界二氧化碳和制冷剂可以用作其他应用（空调，地热发电厂等）的工作流体或在各种传热实验中代替水作为建模流体。所有这些活动都需要对超临界流体特性和传热有扎实的了解，这也是本研究的目标。

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.