Abstract
This paper focuses on the use of the CO2 + SO2 binary mixture as innovative working fluid for closed transcritical power cycles with a minimum temperature above 50 °C. Starting from a literature review of the available experimental data on the mixture, the PC-SAFT EoS is identified as a suitable model to characterize the mixture behavior. Once the proper thermodynamic model is selected for this mixture, a comparison between the innovative transcritical cycle and the sCO2 cycle is proposed for various plant layouts in order to find out the advantages of the innovative mixture. The analysis is presented fixing the cycle maximum temperature at 700 °C and the maximum pressure at 250 bar: the results depict an increment in cycle electric efficiency and cycle specific work, along with a lower temperature of heat introduction in the cycle for any considered configuration of transcritical CO2 + SO2 cycle, when compared to pure sCO2.An economic analysis of the power block is then performed to support the selection of the innovative working fluid. Two of the most promising plant layouts are evidenced: the recompression layout is selected for highly efficient power blocks, while the dual recuperated layout works effectively in applications characterized by higher hot source exploitation. The recompression layout adopting the CO2 + SO2 mixture presents a power block electric efficiency of 48.67% (2.33% higher than the respective sCO2 cycle) and a reduction of the power block CAPEX from 1160 $/kWel to 1000 $/kWel when compared to the sCO2 configuration for a 100MWel size, while the dual recuperated layout exploiting the CO2 + SO2 mixture shows a power block electric efficiency of 39.58% (0.69% above the same sCO2 cycle), a decrease of power block CAPEX from 795 $/kWel to 718 $/kWel and 70 °C of additional heat recovery from the hot source with respect to the analogous sCO2 cycle.
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