Sensitivity of transcritical cycle and turbine design to dopant fraction in CO2-based working fluids

Supercritical CO2 (sCO2) power cycles have gained prominence for their expected excellent performance and compactness. Among their benefits, they may potentially reduce the cost of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants. Because the critical temperature of CO2 is close to ambient temperatures in areas with good solar irradiation, dry cooling may penalise the efficiency of sCO2 power cycles in CSP plants. Recent research has investigated doping CO2 with different materials to increase its critical temperature, enhance its thermodynamic cycle performance, and adapt it to dry cooling in arid climates. This paper investigates the use of CO2/TiCl4, CO2/NOD (an unnamed Non-Organic Dopant), and CO2/C6F6 mixtures as working fluids in a transcritical Rankine cycle implemented in a 100 MWe power plant. Specific focus is given to the effect of dopant type and fraction on optimal cycle operating conditions and on key parameters that influence the expansion process. Thermodynamic modelling of a simple recuperated cycle is employed to identify the optimal turbine pressure ratio and recuperator effectiveness that achieve the highest cycle efficiency for each assumed dopant molar fraction. A turbine design model is then used to define the turbine geometry based on optimal cycle conditions. It was found that doping CO2 with any of the three dopants (TiCl4, NOD, or C6F6) increases the cycle’s thermal efficiency. The greatest increase in efficiency is achieved with TiCl4 (up to 49.5%). The specific work, on the other hand, decreases with TiCl4 and C6F6, but increases with NOD. Moreover, unlike the other two dopants, NOD does not alleviate recuperator irreversibility. In terms of turbine design sensitivity, the addition of any of the three dopants increases the pressure ratio, temperature ratio, and expansion ratios across the turbine. The fluid’s density at turbine inlet increases with all dopants as well. Conversely, the speed of sound at turbine inlet decreases with all dopants, yet higher Mach numbers are expected in CO2/C6F6 turbines. •CO2-based mixtures are studied for dry-cooled concentrated solar power plants.•Cycle thermal efficiency may be vary by up to 7.2% depending on the choice of dopant.•The performance improvement depends on the dopant type and amount.•Turbine operating conditions are sensitive to the choice and amount of dopant.•Heavy dopants decrease turbine specific work while lighter dopants increase it.