Performance Analysis and Comparison Study of Transcritical Power Cycles Using CO2-Based Mixtures as Working Fluids

CO2 in a transcritical CO2 cycle can not easily be condensed due to its low critical temperature (304.15K). In order to increase the critical temperature of working fluid, an effective method is to blend CO2 with other refrigerants to achieve a higher critical temperature. In this study, a transcritical power cycle using CO2-based mixtures which blend CO2 with other refrigerants as working fluids is investigated under heat source. Mathematical models are established to simulate the transcritical power cycle using different CO2-based mixtures under MATLAB® software environment. A parametric analysis is conducted under steady-state conditions for different CO2-based mixtures. In addition, a parametric optimization is carried out to obtain the optimal design parameters, and the comparisons of the transcritical power cycle using different CO2-based mixtures and pure CO2 are conducted. The results show that a raise in critical temperature can be achieved by using CO2-based mixtures, and CO2-based mixtures with R32 and R22 can also obtain better thermodynamic performance than pure CO2 in transcritical power cycle. What’s more, the condenser area needed by CO2-based mixture is smaller than pure CO2.