Special Issue "Supercritical Fluids for Thermal Energy Applications"

A special issue of Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300). This special issue belongs to the section "Thermodynamics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 September 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Miguel Ángel Reyes Belmonte
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 28932 Mostoles, Spain
Interests: solar thermal energy; integration of renewable energy sources; energy optimization; thermal energy storage; advanced power cycles; combined heat and power; power plant technologies; thermodynamics optimization; turbomachinery characterization; additive manufacturing
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. María José Montes
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Energy Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain
Interests: solar thermal power plants; solar central receivers; supercritical power cycles; heat exchangers; solar heat for industrial processes
Dr. Rafael Guédez
E-Mail
Guest Editor
Senior Researcher, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Interests: techno-economic analysis; solar energy; energy storage; thermal power generation; concentrating solar power

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Worldwide energy demand increase is a clear indicator of human and wealth development as we, as a modern society, require higher levels of energy to maintain our living standards. Nevertheless, a change in electricity and heat generation is required, including more efficient energy conversion systems. In order to achieve that, supercritical fluids have drawn the attention of the scientific community based on their peculiar thermophysical properties leading to highly efficient solutions according to thermodynamics. New materials developments together with stringent emission legislation are contributing to the rapid deployment of supercritical fluid technologies for power conversion systems and waste heat recovery applications. However, there are still many areas of research and challenges to address to exploit the benefits of supercritical fluids to the fullest.

Noting all these exciting developments, it has never been more pertinent to launch a Special Issue that seeks to capture the latest research in supercritical fluids for thermal energy applications whether for renewable applications, nuclear engineering, waste heat recovery, and much more, with a clear interest in entropy analysis and thermodynamics optimization.

Authors are encouraged to submit their research to this Special Issue. Topics include but are not limited to:

  • Supercritical CO2 cycles
  • Supercritical steam cycles
  • Entropy analysis
  • Thermodynamics optimization
  • Energy and exergy optimization
  • New concepts in thermodynamics cycles
  • Supercritical cycles for nuclear applications
  • Waste heat recovery applications
  • Concentrating solar power applications
  • Energy sources and renewable energy integration
  • Heat exchangers
  • Turbomachinery design

Dr. Miguel Ángel Reyes
Dr. María José Montes
Dr. Rafael Guédez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Entropy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • entropy
  • supercritical cycles
  • multi-objective optimization
  • energy and exergy optimization
  • exergoeconomic analysis
  • thermodynamics optimization
  • waste heat recovery
  • concentrating solar power
  • thermoeconomic analysis
  • integration into renewable energy sources

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Structural and Parametric Optimization of S–CO2 Nuclear Power Plants
Entropy 2021, 23(8), 1079; https://doi.org/10.3390/e23081079 - 19 Aug 2021
Viewed by 310
Abstract
The transition to the use of supercritical carbon dioxide as a working fluid for power generation units will significantly reduce the equipment′s overall dimensions while increasing fuel efficiency and environmental safety. Structural and parametric optimization of S–CO2 nuclear power plants was carried [...] Read more.
The transition to the use of supercritical carbon dioxide as a working fluid for power generation units will significantly reduce the equipment′s overall dimensions while increasing fuel efficiency and environmental safety. Structural and parametric optimization of S–CO2 nuclear power plants was carried out to ensure the maximum efficiency of electricity production. Based on the results of mathematical modeling, it was found that the transition to a carbon dioxide working fluid for the nuclear power plant with the BREST–OD–300 reactor leads to an increase of efficiency from 39.8 to 43.1%. Nuclear power plant transition from the Rankine water cycle to the carbon dioxide Brayton cycle with recompression is reasonable at a working fluid temperature above 455 °C due to the carbon dioxide cycle′s more effective regeneration system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Supercritical Fluids for Thermal Energy Applications)
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Performances of Transcritical Power Cycles with CO2-Based Mixtures for Waste Heat Recovery of ICE
Authors: 
Jinghang Liu, Xinxing Lin, Wen Su and Naijun Zhou
Affiliation: 
School of Energy Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, Hunan, China; Institute of Science and Technology, China Three Gorges Corporation, Beijing 100038, China
Abstract: 
In the waste heat recovery field of internal combustion engine (ICE), transcritical CO2 power cycle faces the challenges of high cycle pressure and difficulty in condensation. To overcome these problems, Co2 is expected to be mixed with organic fluids. Thus, in this work, based on the recuperative configuration, a new split cycle with CO2 mixtures is proposed to deeply recover the exhaust heat from ICE. The performances of these two cycles are analyzed and compared through the development of thermodynamic models. Furthermore, five organic fluids, namely R600, R600a, R601, R601a and R290, are selected to mix with CO2. The calculated results reveal that CO2/R290 (0.3/0.7) has the best performance in the split cycle. Under the given conditions, the split cycle with CO2/R290 (0.3/0.7) has net work 24.75kW and thermal efficiency 18.80%. Compared with the recuperative cycle, the split cycle can significantly improve the waste heat recovery efficiency. In addition, with the increase of turbine inlet pressure, the net work and thermal efficiency increase and tend to be stable. In the sensitivity analysis, the net work of split cycle is greater than that of recuperative cycle under the same condition.

Title: Structural and Parametric Optimization of S-CO2 Thermal and Nuclear Power Plants
Authors: Nikolay Rogalev, Andrey Rogalev, Vladimir Kindra * and Olga Zlyvko
Affiliation: National Research University “Moscow Power Engineering Institute”
Abstract: The transition to the use of supercritical carbon dioxide as a working fluid for power generation units will significantly reduce the equipment's overall dimensions while increasing fuel efficiency and environmental safety. Structural and parametric optimization of S-CO2 nuclear and thermal power plants was carried out to ensure the maximum efficiency of electricity production. Based on the results of mathematical modeling, it was found that the transition to a carbon dioxide working fluid for the nuclear power plant with the BREST-OD-300 reactor leads to an increase of efficiency from 39.8 to 43.1%. In turn, the net efficiency of the promising coal-fired thermal power plant at the live steam temperature of 780°C reaches 49.2%, which is 2% higher compared to steam turbine power units at the same temperature level at the turbine inlet.

Title: Recent Advances on Trans-Critical Power Cycle for Waste Heat Recovery
Authors: 
Dr. Wen Su

Title: Parametric Analysis of a Polygeneration System with CO2 Working Fluid
Authors: Evangelos Bellos
Affiliation: Thermal Department, School of Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Abstract: The objective of the present work is the investigation of a novel polygeneration system for power, refrigeration and heating production at two temperature levels. The present system uses CO2 as the working fluid which is an environmentally friendly fluid. The total configuration is a combination of a transcritical refrigeration cycle coupled to a Brayton cycle with recompression which is fed by a biomass boiler. The examined system at nominal operating conditions produces refrigeration at 5oC, heating at 45oC and 80oC. It is useful to state that the system can be converted into a trigeneration system of the two heating productions are produced at the same temperature level. The system is studied parametrical by changing the following seven critical parameters: turbine inlet temperature, high pressure, medium pressure, heat exchanger effectiveness, refrigeration temperature, heat rejection temperature and high heating temperature. In the nominal operating conditions, the system energy and exergy efficiencies are 78.07% and 26.29% respectively. For a heat input of 100 kW, the net power production is 24.50 kW, the refrigeration production 30.73 kW, while the low and the high heating productions 9.24 kW and 13.60 kW respectively. The analysis is conducted with a developed model in Engineering Equation Solver (EES).

Title: Bibliometric Analysis on Supercritical CO2 Power Cycles for Concentrating Solar Power Applications
Authors: M.A. Reyes-Belmonte; M.J. Montes; R. Guedez
Affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Energy and Mechanical Engineering, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 28932 Mostoles, Spain; Department of Energy Engineering, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Madrid, Spain; KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract: Over the last few years, supercritical CO2 power cycles have received a massive interest from research community due to their exceptional and promised conversion efficiencies above 50% that is leading a revolution in power cycles research. In particular, those high efficiencies can be achieved at a moderated temperature level that suits well with concentrating solar power (CSP) applications and it is seen as one of the key business cores for supercritical technologies. In that context, hundreds of publications have recently appeared what makes it necessary a thorough analysis to detect research areas of interest and who are the main actors in this research field. In this work, a bibliometric analysis on supercritical CO2 for CSP applications has been performed taking indexed publications in the Web of Science between 1990 and 2020. Main research actors and areas of interest have been analyzed through networking mapping and text mining techniques. Results found are compared to the most recent research projects and programs on sCO2 for CSP applications.

 

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