Cost comparison of printed circuit heat exchanger to low cost periodic flow regenerator for use as recuperator in a s-CO2 Brayton cycle

摘要

Supercritical Carbon Dioxide (sCO(2)) power cycles have the potential to deliver high efficiency at low cost. However, in order for an sCO(2) cycle to reach high efficiency, highly effective recuperators are needed. These recuperative heat exchangers must transfer heat at a rate that is substantially larger than the heat transfer to the cycle itself and can therefore represent a significant portion of the power block costs. Regenerators are proposed as a cost saving alternative to high cost printed circuit recuperators for this application. A regenerator is an indirect heat exchanger which periodically stores and releases heat to the working fluid. The simple design of a regenerator can be made more inexpensively compared to current options.