Size optimization of heat exchanger and thermoeconomic assessment for supercritical CO2 recompression Brayton cycle applied in marine

When the state-of-the-art supercritical CO2 cycle is applied to the marines, priority should be given to the feasibility of its component size. In this study, a thermodynamic model of the marine supercritical CO2 recompression cycle was developed. To evaluate the thermoeconomic and component size of the system, the recuperator and precooler with a microtube structure were designed. After quantitatively discussing the impact of the two-stage compression mode on the component scale, the sizes of the heat exchangers were optimized based on the maximum allowable pressure drop. The parameter analysis demonstrates that increasing the speed of the power turbine is beneficial to the system thermoeconomic. Not only can an efficiency improvement of 1.73% and a cost saving of 1.77 $/MWh be achieved, but also the implementation of two-stage compression reduces the volume of the high-temperature recuperator, low-temperature recuperator, and precooler by 4.62%, 6.33%, and 37.4%, respectively. The size optimization analysis suggests that the direction with the longest distance should be regarded as the length constraint of the heat exchanger design in the absence of multi-objective optimization. Moreover, this study has guiding significance for the size optimization of the supercritical CO2 cycle used in a limited space. •A higher speed power turbine is more suitable for the proposed sCO2 cycle.•Develop a one-dimensional model of heat exchanger with microtube structure.•The precooler volume is reduced by 37.4% under the two-stage compression mode.•Optimize the heat exchanger size based on the maximum allowable pressure drop.