Chapter 1

Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar

Rankine Cycle System

Hiroshi Yamaguchi and Xin-Rong Zhang

Abstract A supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system, an innovation of a new

concept for global warming solution by using CO2 as a natural working fluid is
introduced and the development of the novel system is presented. The system
consists of solar collectors, power generation turbine, heat exchangers, and
mechanical feed pump (or a novel concept the so-called thermally driven pump).
This system is particularly characterized by CO2 transcritical Rankine cycle with
newly developed system elements, which include evacuated tube solar collector,
turbine, gas–liquid heat exchanger, feed pump and other flow regulating elements.
In this article much attention is given to the thermally driven pump, which shows
promising performance data, when replacing for a mechanical feed pump in the
system. Preliminary results gained from a prototype system installed for an actual
operation under extracting solar thermal energy, producing electric and heat energy,
indicate that the system has more advantages against a fossil fueled cogeneration
system. The developed system represents highly potential solution and idea to solve
the global warming crisis, and also can give a clue to a path of future energy
creation technique for green energy resources.

Keywords Solar energy Supercritical CO2 Rankine cycle Heat collection






Heat recovery Power generation Transcritical cycle CO2 turbine Thermally





driven pump Economic Environment Global warming
Nomenclature
A Area (m2)
d Diameter (m)
h Specific enthalpy (J/kg)
It Total solar radiation during the test time period per day (MJ)
L Tube length (m)
λ Thermal conductivity for fluid (W/(m-K))
Me Reduction of CO2 emission per year (kg)

H. Yamaguchi (&)
X.-R. Zhang

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Energy Conversion Research Center, Doshisha
University, Tatara, Kyotanabe-Shi, Kyoto Prefecture 610-0321, Japan
e-mail: hyamaguc@mail.doshisha.ac.jp

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 3

X.-R. Zhang and I. Dincer (eds.), Energy Solutions to Combat Global Warming,
Lecture Notes in Energy 33, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-26950-4_1
4 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

Mp Saving of petroleum per year (L)

Nu Nusselt number (–)
Nux Local Nusselt number (–)
m Mass flow rate (kg/s)
p Pressure (MPa)
Pr Prandtl number (–)
Qin Heat quantity absorbed (W)
Qout Heat recovery (W)
qct Total heat quantity collected in the collector during the test time period per
day (MJ)
qi Incident solar flux (W/m2)
q Heat flux (W/m2)
ρ Density (kg/m3)
r Radial vertical coordinator (m)
r0 Tube radial (m)
R Dimension less radial coordinator; R = r/r0 (–)
Re Reynold number (–)
T Temperature (°C)
Ta Ambient temperature (°C)
Tf Average collector inlet fluid temperature (°C)
ν Kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
Wpower Power generation (W)
x Axial coordinate (m)
X Temperature profile; X = x/L (–)

Greek Letters
η Efficiency(%)
ηcollector Collector efficiency (%)
ηpower Power generation efficiency (%)
ηheat Heat recovery efficiency (%)
ηth Thermal efficiency (%)
ηgen Turbine efficiency (%)

Subscripts
1–5 Positions shown in Fig. 1
P Pump
T Turbine
s Surface area of evacuated tube solar collector
CO2 Mass flow rate of CO2

Acronyms
CFC Chlorofluorocarbon
GWP Global warming potential
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 5

OPD Ozone depletion potential

PV Photovoltaic
SUS Grade stainless steel
USD United States Dollar

Chemical Compounds
CO2 Carbon dioxide
NH3 Ammonia
H2O Water
C3H8 Propane

1 Introduction

The issue of global warming is one of the most corporate issues from all sides with
interdisciplinary efforts [1]. Particularly in consideration of energy and environment
issue, the recruitment of new resources is urgently demanded among many attempts
to replace the conventional fossil energy resources to green energy resources [2, 3].
The main energy resources, which propel the world nowadays, come from the
fossil fuel in terms of industrial, transportation, and also house hold usage. For
decades, fossil fuel produces wasteful and harmful emission to the environment,
affecting all of the life on the earth. Amid shout of request for sending effective
solution, there are many attempts for improving the fossil energy usage efficiently.
However, in reality the limitation and high unit cost of the fossil fuel make the
world facing energy crisis as we human being realized the seriousness of the issue
[4].
In the point of preventing global warming and greenhouse effect, the natural
working fluid CO2 is contemporarily used in the thermo-fluid cycle, and in effect
which has strong demands for developing new technology to its usage based on
ecologically safe and secure [5, 6]. The characteristics and properties of various
working fluids are shown in Table 1; where OPD stands for ozone depletion
potential, which is the potential of the refrigerant to destroy the ozone layer by
using CFC-11 as a datum reference where CFC-11 has an OPD of 1.0; and where
GWP stands for the global warming potential, which is the ratio of how much effect
of the refrigerant will cause global warming by comparison with similar mass of
carbon dioxide (CO2) [7]. From the Table 1, it can be seen obviously that CO2
(R-744) has low ozone depletion and global warming potential (0 and 1, respec-
tively), when compared with other working fluid. CO2 is also nonflammable,
nontoxic, chemically inactive, and inexpensive as well. Moreover, the volumetric
refrigeration capacity of CO2 (22,545 kJ/m3 at 0 °C) is higher than other popular
working fluids in the market. It means that the system volume and the changing
mass of working fluid would be much effective by using CO2 in thermo-fluid cycle.
6 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

Also, CO2 has low critical point, in which its critical temperature is 31.1 °C and
critical pressure is 7.38 MPa [8]. The thermo-physical properties indicate that CO2
easily changed its phase to supercritical phase in moderate operating condition due
to its low critical point. It has a great potential for high efficiency, when used as
working fluid, with the operation temperature in the range of 30–200 °C in the
thermo-fluid cycle.
Using CO2 as working fluid in thermo-fluid cycle can also be considered as one
way of preventing the global warming. The gases emitted from industrial plants or
transportation system will be recycled by separating CO2 from other gas with
membrane technology or other means. After CO2 purification process, CO2 will be
stored in gas bottle or cylinder in convenience. Literally, CO2 can be easily supplied
to the user and used as working fluid for thermo-fluid cycle for generating energy as
power output and/or supplying thermal (heat) energy in household usage.
In terms of protecting the world environment and sustainable development, the
application of renewable energies to electric power generation and thermal energy
supplies are the key for success. The renewable energy has been promoted for
decades and more, and various researchers have worked on developing and
improving new combined power/heat thermo-fluid cycle. In 2004, supercritical CO2
solar Rankine cycle system which utilizes solar energy as the energy source and
CO2 as working fluid originally designed and constructed from the analytical result
that the system efficiency would be higher than that of ordinary photovoltaic cell
(PV solar cell). The aspect of the system analysis also includes economic and
environment profits [9].

Table 1 Characteristic of some working fluids

Properties R-12 R-22 R-134a R-407C R-410A R-717 R-290 R-744
ODP/GWP 1/8500 0.05/1700 0/1300 0/1600 0/1900 0/0 0/3 0/1
Flammability/toxicity N/N N/N N/N N/N N/N Y/Y Y/N N/N
Molecular mass 120.9 86.5 102 86.2 72.6 17 44.1 44
(kg/kmol)
Critical pressure 4.11 4.97 4.07 4.64 4.79 11.42 4.25 7.38
(Mpa)
Critical temperature 112 96 101.1 86.1 70.2 133 96.7 31.1
(°C)
Reduced pressurea 0.07 0.1 0.07 0.11 0.16 0.04 0.11 0.47
Reduced 0.71 0.74 0.73 0.76 0.79 0.67 0.74 0.9
temperatureb
Refrigerant capacityc 2734 4356 2868 4029 6763 4382 3907 22,545
(kJ/m3)
Data in the table come from Ref. [7]
R-12: dichlorodifluoromethane; R-22: chlorodifluoromethane; R-134a: tetrafluoroethane; R-407C: ternary
mixture of difluoromethane/pentafluoroethane/tetrafluoroethane (23/25/52, %); R-410A: binary mixture of
difluoromethane/pentafluoroethane (50/50, %); R-717: ammonia; R-290: propane; R-744: carbon dioxide
a
Ratio of saturation pressure at 0 °C to critical pressure
b
Ratio of 273.15 K (0 °C) to critical temperature in Kelvin
c
Volumetric refrigeration capacity at 0 °C
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 7

2 Outline of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle

System

The natural working fluid, CO2, is used in supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle
system, which is composed of evacuated tube solar collector, turbine, heat
exchangers, and mechanical feed pump. The outline of system is schematically
shown in Fig. 1a, and p-h diagram of the cycle is attached in Fig. 1b [10]. From the
figures, it is seen that CO2 is heated in the evacuated tube solar collector, where it
becomes supercritical (high temperature and pressure) state (Fig. 1b, state). After
the heating process, the high-pressure supercritical CO2 drives the turbine to gen-
erate electric power output and expands to the gaseous state (Fig. 1b, state). From
the gaseous state of CO2 at the outlet of turbine, CO2 is cooled by water (or other
fluid) in heat exchangers and changes into liquid state (Fig. 1b, state), where the
thermal energy is obtained from the process and heat output can be utilized
effectively for hot water supply or other thermal usages. After leaving the heat
exchangers, CO2 is pumped back to the evacuated tube solar collector into
high-pressure liquid state (Fig. 1b, state) by the mechanical feed pump or newly
developed thermally driven pump [11]. The main purpose of the system is to
generate electric power output and to supply the thermal energy as hot water from
the solar thermal energy with environment preservation by combining the renew-
able energy (solar energy) and ecologically safe fluid (CO2) in the perspective of
future energy creation in green energy resources.

Fig. 1 a Outline of supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system and b p-h diagram of the cycle
[10]
8 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

3 Experimental Setup

Based on the outline proposed in Fig. 1, a prototype of the supercritical CO2 solar
Rankine cycle system was designed, constructed, and developed. This system has
been originally installed on the rooftop of Energy Conversion Research Center at
Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan since 2004, as shown in Fig. 2, and Fig. 3
shows a schematic diagram of the experimental facility of the prototype [12]. The
facility of the prototype mainly consists of evacuated tube solar collector, originally
expansion valve and test turbine in parallel arrangement, high-temperature and
low-temperature heat exchangers (CO2/water heat exchangers), mechanical feed
pump (lately a thermally driven pump added in parallel arrangement), and also
temperature and pressure sensors are installed to measure in-time data. It is noted
that results represented in original experiment was conducted by using mechanical
feed pump and using a expansion valve instead of the turbine for the sake of
describing basic working principle and system performance. With development
from the original prototype system, however, the supercritical turbine is newly
designed and tested, also at the same time, the thermally driven pump is newly
manufactured and installed in the system. Those new system elements are described
in details lately. The amount of 8–13 kg of CO2 is charged in the system, where the
highest operation pressure is designed as 12 MPa. In processing data gained from

Fig. 2 Supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system on the rooftop of energy conversion research
center at Doshisha University (May 2015)
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 9

Fig. 3 Schematic diagram of the experiment facility prototype [12]

experiments, the thermo-physical properties of CO2 are determined referring the

measuring data with a Program Package for Thermo-physical Properties of Fluids
database [13].

3.1 Evacuated Tube Solar Collector

Due to the characteristic of the evacuated tube solar collector, which plays an
important role in the supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle, the good solar thermal
absorption characteristic is required for the successful operation. To effectively heat
CO2 to a high temperature above supercritical state, all-glass evacuated U-tube heat
removal device, the so-called evacuated tube solar collector, are used, as shown in
Fig. 4. The 15 units of evacuated tube solar collectors were installed, in which each
unit is consisted of 13 U-tubes (4.35 mm of diameter and 3500 mm of total length)
with total solar collection effective area of 1.43 m2. These collectors consist of
outer glass envelope (38 mm of diameter) and inner glass envelope (27 mm of
inner diameter). The selective surface was employed for the collector tube with a
high solar absorptivity of 0.927 and a low emissivity of 0.193 for the temperature at
100 °C with the wavelength of sunlight at 250–2000 nm. The transmissivity of
glass envelope is 0.930. The maximum temperature and pressure, to which the
evacuated tube solar collector can be durable, are up to 250 °C and 12 MPa,
respectively. In the experiment setup, a measurement and data sharing system was
installed in the array of the collectors to achieve real-time data measurement,
processing, and acquisition [14].
10 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

Fig. 4 A sketch of the

evacuated tube solar collector
manufactured for supercritical
CO2 solar Rankine cycle [9]

Fig. 5 Outlook of test

turbine [15]

3.2 Turbine

The turbine is also one of the key components in the development of the supercritical
CO2 solar Rankine cycle system to generate electric power output. The outlook profile
of a test turbine and its detailed assembly are shown in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively
[15]. The test turbine is made of stainless steel SUS304 for enduring high working
temperature and pressure during the running operation. In constructing the test tur-
bine, a magnetic coupling structure is employed as schematically displayed in Fig. 6
for the sake of avoiding leakage due to the supercritical state of CO2 at the inlet point
of turbine, in which high-temperature, high-pressure, and low-viscosity state persists.
The magnetic coupling structure has four magnets with two installed on either side.
These magnets are made of neodymium with dimension of φ10 × 20 mm and
560 mT of magnetic flux. The magneto-electrical rotary and torque detector were
installed for examining the rotation speed, rotation speed, and the torque of the
turbine.
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 11

Fig. 6 Schematic assembly diagram of test turbine [15]

3.3 Heat Exchanger

The heat exchangers are intended to recover heat in the supercritical CO2 solar
Rankine cycle system, in which concurrent CO2 is cooled to low-temperature liquid
state to complete Rankine cycle. There are two heat exchanger units device in the
supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system. Namely, a high-temperature heat
exchanger (HX1) and a low-temperature heat exchanger (HX2) are, respectively,
used to utilize heat as higher temperature water (in the high-temperature heat
recovery unit) and lower temperature water (in the low-temperature heat recovery
unit). The heat exchanging rate of CO2 in the CO2/water heat exchanger is cal-
culated based on the average temperature of the CO2-side of the heat exchanger.
The total heat exchanger area is approximately 0.76 m2. In order to achieve high
capability of heat exchanging rate between water and CO2, the shell and tube design
of heat exchanger is selected by tube side of CO2 and shell side of water. Four
platinum resistor temperature sensors are installed in heat exchangers to measure
inlet and outlet of water temperatures, plus two water flow meters to measure the
water outlet flow of the heat exchangers.

3.4 Mechanical Feed Pump

A plunger pump (mechanical feed pump) was originally installed for feeding liquid
CO2 to the evacuated tube solar collector in the supercritical CO2 solar Rankine
cycle system [16]. The canned motor plunger pump, specially designed for the
purpose, can provide a maximum operating pressure of 12 MPa and 0.03 kg/s of
flow rate. The flow rate meter is also installed in the downstream side of the
mechanical feed pump to measure and record the mass flow rate of liquid CO2 from
the mechanical feed pump as well as temperature and pressure measuring devices.
12 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

The flow meter is a type of a Coriolis effect mass flow meter to measure and record
the mass flow rate of CO2, which can endure the maximum operating pressure at
12 MPa as well. Its measurement range is approximately 0.09–1.0 kg/min.

4 Representative Characteristics of Original System

The experimental work was conducted in order to understand the basic cycle per-
formance of the supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system. The weatherize
measurement of variations of CO2 temperature at the outlet of the evacuated tube
solar collector and outlet of the expansion valve (to realize iso-entropic expansion
process) result are shown in Fig. 7a. From the figure, one fine day in summer season
with high solar radiation is selected to use as a reference weather for experimental
condition of Kyoto area in Japan [17]. The figure shows a representative test carried
out from 9.00 to 17.00, in which the measured CO2 flow rate is displayed. The flow
rate of CO2 is reduced gradually from 0.0133 kg/s to 0.0067 kg/s at 11.00 because
the control of the expansion valve was adjusted to the state of one-third open for
examining transient response. After the quick drop of the system at 11.30, the system
temperature tends to be stable during the time at 11.30 to 14.00.

Fig. 7 a Variations in the CO2 temperatures and CO2 flow rate with time measured in monitoring
points of the cycle; b variations in the CO2 pressures with time measured in monitoring points of
the cycle; c variations of the cycle outputs and the heat quantity absorbed into CO2 in the collector
and d variations of the power generation efficiency and heat recovery efficiency [17]
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 13

Similar to Fig. 7a, the measured CO2 pressure during the test hours is shown in
Fig. 7b. From Fig. 7b, at the time before 11.00, the expansion valve was kept fully
opened position, it can be seen that the CO2 pressures of various monitoring points
in the system are almost the same. It is observed that, when the expansion valve was
set to one-third opened (after 11.00), the huge pressure raise reaches up to 8.7 MPa
while the low side of pressure is approximately 6.2 MPa. It can be confirmed in
Fig. 7b that the supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system is indeed functioning
as a transcritical Rankine cycle by regulation expansion process.
Based on the measured data in Fig. 7a, b, the energy outputs (the power gen-
eration Wpower and the heat recovery Qout) and heat quantity absorbed at evacuated
tube solar collector are estimated and displayed in Fig. 7c, and with similar manner
the efficiencies of the system (power generation efficiency ηpower and heat recovery
efficiency ηheat) are shown in Fig. 7d. The operation time was approximately 11.00
to 17.00. From Fig. 7c, it was gained that during the time average of heat quantity
the absorbed Qin is estimated 1616.2 W, and the time average of power generation
Wpower and heat recovery output Qout are estimated as 401.1 W and 1050.4 W,
respectively, whereas the total power output was approximately 1451.5 W. From
Fig. 7d, the time average of power generation efficiency ηpower and heat generation
(recovery) efficiency ηheat are found to be 25 % and 65 %, respectively.
The experimental results show that the supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle
system can work well in the transcritical region throughout the test hours with an
effective heat recovery. The thermodynamic analyses based on the measured data
show that the system can achieve the heat recovery and power generation with
reasonable thermodynamic efficiency.
It is noted that ηpower and ηheat are defined by the following formula, to which the
cycle performance can be described.

Wpower
gpower ¼ ð1Þ
Qin

Qout
gheat ¼ ð2Þ
Qin

It is further noted that Wpower, Qin, and Qout are estimated from the cycle p-
h diagram as follows:

Wpower ¼ ggen mCO ðh1  h2 Þ ð3Þ

Qin ¼ mCO2 ðh1  h4 Þ ð4Þ

Qout ¼ mCO2 ðh2  h3 Þ ð5Þ

where mCO2 is mass flow rate of CO2 in the cycle and ηgen is turbine generation
efficiency.
14 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

It should be mentioned that the estimation of energy output in the present study
represents the minimal value, due to the CO2 flow rate not in the true turbine
condition (i.e., iso-entropic expansion condition), which is much smaller than that
in actual turbine operating condition. So that it can be well speculated that more
heat can be actually collected in the evacuated tube solar collector. It is further
mentioned that the energy consumption of CO2 mechanical feed pump is not
considered in the efficiency above, owing to the fact that the mechanical feed pump
is not operated in optimum condition and efficiency as described in the previous
section.
Based on the fact that the operation of supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle
system is strongly depended on time variation of solar radiation. At early state of
system development, the thermodynamic analysis was conducted to estimate the
performance of the proposed system such as obtaining the annual power generation.
So that it can contribute the analysis for obtaining main design parameters affecting
to the system performance and optimizing design of the supercritical CO2 solar
Rankine cycle system. The thermodynamic analysis of system performance was
actually performed based on the short-range time span data likewise Fig. 7a, b with
condition of 0.012 kg/s of CO2 flow rate and 5.0 m2 of efficient collector area [15].
In Fig. 8, the estimated temperatures are displayed at the outlet of evacuated tube
solar collector, turbine, and heat exchangers based on the monthly average incident
solar radiation (from January to December) in Kyoto area, Japan. It can be seen that
from January to July, the incident solar radiation gradually increases and vice versa
from July to December. On the summer season, the supercritical CO2 temperature at
the outlet of evacuated tube solar collector (T1) can reach up to 220 °C (July), and it
is about 125 °C in winter season (December), while the annual average is calcu-
lated as approximately 180 °C. The temperature at outlet of turbine (T2) is 30 to
40 °C difference at the outlet of evacuated tube solar collector (T1). It is further
noted that, the annual average temperature at the outlet of heat exchanger HX1 (T3)
is approximately 115 °C, which is found to be relatively high, but practical to
utilize the heat recovery from the system.

Fig. 8 Effect of incident

solar radiation on the cycle
temperatures [12]
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 15

Similar to Fig. 8, the variations of system’s power output and efficiencies with
monthly average are shown in Fig. 9. The result shows the power output varying
with the incident solar radiation in greater extent. The solar radiation highly
influences power generation efficiencies ηpower and heat recovery efficiencies ηheat,
especially in winter season, in which, however, the power output shows lower
value. In contrast, in the summer season, the larger power output with lower electric
ηpower and thermal ηheat efficiencies is evident. The temperature difference between
the surface of evacuated tube solar collector and surrounding temperature becomes
greater in summer than winter, so that the thermal loss of the evacuated tube solar
collector to the ambient would increase largely. In some extend it would be the
main reason for the occurrence of these seasonal phenomena. From Fig. 9, the
resultant annual averaged of overall electric power output, heat recovery, and
overall efficiencies are 11.4 %, 36.2 %, and 47.6 %, respectively.
The theoretical account of estimating the system performance by using CO2 as
working fluid was carried out to compare with other working fluids. In the calcu-
lation condition, the outlet temperature of evacuated tube solar collector T1 and
condensation temperature T4 (outlet from heat exchanger system) are fixed at 200 °
C and 10 °C, respectively. The pressure at high side (p1 and p5) in the cycle is
assumed equal to low side (p2, p3 and p4). The result of comparison of the theo-
retical account is summarized in Table 2. It shows that CO2 can give maximal
thermal efficiency as 0.118. CO2 has higher potential of work output WT−WP,
0.588. However, the pump power consumption in the system with CO2 is also
found to be greater compared with other working fluids, which reduces the total
efficiency of the system, as 0.095.
It is an obvious advantage of using CO2 as a working fluid to be applied in the
thermal engineering of 200 °C below. And the thermodynamic and heat transport
properties of CO2 seem to be favorable in terms of heat transfer and pressure drop,
compared with other working fluid [14]. All of these would contribute to the
advantage of using supercritical CO2 as a working fluid in the Rankine cycle.

Fig. 9 Effect of incident

solar radiation on the cycle
outputs and power efficiencies
[12]
16 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

Table 2 The theoretical result comparisons of using CO2 as working fluids with other fluids [14]
WT WP WT−WP mCO2 ηth p1 p2 T2 ηpower
(kW) (kW) (kW) (kg/s) (MPa) (MPa) (°C)
CO2 0.650 0.062 0.588 0.012 0.118 9.0 4.50 135.3 0.095
NH3 0.435 0.003 0.432 0.003 0.086 1.23 0.61 135.6 0.007
H2O 0.259 0.00002 0.259 0.002 0.052 0.020 0.010 127.4 0.00007
C3H8 0.384 0.008 0.376 0.007 0.075 1.27 0.64 173.2 0.021
R134a 0.335 0.004 0.330 0.013 0.066 0.83 0.42 174.9 0.013

4.1 Economic Aspect

The analysis of energy saving, emission reduction, and economy in case of using
supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system as power energy source, instead of a
petroleum-fired power plant, can be estimated based on the U.S Electric Power
Annual [18]. The effect of weather and season is not considered in this analysis. In
addition, in the analysis for the sake of comparison the scale of the supercritical
CO2 solar Rankine cycle system is assumed ten times larger than that assumed in
this current system.
The economic estimation resulted from the above analysis is summarized in
Table 3. It shows that the petroleum can be saved up to 8.5 kL per year (Mp) and
28,237 kg of CO2 emission (Me) can be reduced per year. The cost of 0.047USD
per kW/h for the total energy output and 0.176USD per kW/h for electric energy are
estimated in the case of 10,000 set of supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system
manufactured per year. While for PV cell system, the cost is assumed as approx-
imately 0.410USD per kW/h. Resultantly under the estimation it can be thought that
the capital investment for users may be paid back in 5 years.
Generally, the proposed supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system is to
achieve cogeneration of electric and heat power with reasonable thermodynamic
cycle efficiency. It should be considered, overall, that the proposed system, is highly
effective technology reducing the CO2 emission and avoids the toxicity and
flammability risks of using ammonia and hydrocarbon as working fluid. The
supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system is very suitable for the energy loads of
commercial facilities, hotels, schools, hospitals, and other facilities that can benefit
from an independent source of electric and heat power.

Table 3 Economic of Estimation results

supercritical CO2 solar
Rankine cycle system [9]
Mp (saved petroleum) 8.5 kL/year
Me (reduced CO2 emission) 28237.0 kg/year
Cost (for total energy) 0.047USD per kW/h
Cost (for electric energy) 0.176USD per kW/h
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 17

5 Development of Key Elements in Supercritical CO2

Solar Rankine Cycle System

The performance of supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system is strongly

depended on the appropriate designs of each element. Due to the reasons that
supercritical state of CO2 is highly compressible with large density and viscosity
variation, the specific key elements of system design are investigated for the
objective of achieving the best performance of the actual supercritical CO2 solar
Rankine cycle system.

5.1 The Investigation on Evacuated Tube Solar Collector

The measured performance data for the evacuated tube solar collector in the spring,
summer, autumn, and winter seasons in Kyoto area are presented in Figs. 10 and 11
[19]. April, July, November, and January are selected as representative spring,
summer, autumn, and winter season in Kyoto area of Japan, respectively. In Fig. 10
as seen, the time averaged of CO2 flow rate mCO2 varies with solar radiation in four
different season indicates the increasing order as solar radiation increases (winter to
summer), in which the total solar radiation It changes in range of 50–210 MJ in
Kyoto area. The measured data of CO2 flow rate varies from 0.007 kg/s to
0.023 kg/s.
In the similar manner, Fig. 11 shows, (a) for the collected heat quantity qct by the
evacuated tube solar collector, and (b) for its efficiency ηcollector, where (Tf−Ta)
represents temperature difference between the average CO2 inlet fluid temperature
of the collector and ambient air temperature. It can be found from Fig. 11b that,
approximately 70 % of the collector efficiencies in four seasons data is above 50 %
(ηcollector > 50 %), while annual average of collector efficiency being approximately

Fig. 10 Variations in
time-weighted average CO2
mass flow rate per day with
total solar radiation during the
test period per day under
different seasons [19]
18 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

Fig. 11 a Variations of the total heat quantity under different seasons. b Variations of the
time-weighted average solar collector efficiency with (Tf−Ta)/It under different seasons [19]

60 %. The collector efficiency with using supercritical CO2 as working fluid shows
much higher than using water as working fluid in evacuated tube solar collector,
and the fact of which can be confirmed by the theoretical efficiency calculated on
the basis of the water collector as Fig. 11b.
From the observed data in Fig. 11, the collector efficiency is further studied in
order to verify the high-performance characteristic from a view point of flow
dynamics of the supercritical CO2. The numerical analysis was employed and carried
out for the purpose of fundamental understanding and estimation of the heat transfer
characteristics of supercritical CO2 under forced convection conditions [20].
The numerical investigations are based on the collector tube a horizontal col-
lector tube with the internal diameter of 6.0 mm and heated length of 3.6 m, used in
the experiment [19]. The pressurized CO2 with a supercritical pressure of 8 MPa
and temperature of 305.0 K were used as a condition of working fluid at the inlet of
evacuated tube solar collector with the constant heat fluxes of the range 100.0–
800.0 W/m2. The detailed of numerical investigation refers to the reference [20].
The variations of supercritical CO2 properties from the results of numerical
investigation for the evacuated tube solar collector are shown in Figs. 12, 13 and
14. Figure 12 shows the results of local Nusselt number with the different condi-
tions of heat fluxes q (100, 300, 500 and 800 W/m2) at the Reynolds number
Re = 210. It can be seen that the local Nusselt number increases with increasing
heat fluxes q. The temperature profiles of X = 0.1, 0.5 and 0.9 with heat flux
q = 800 W/m2 and Reynolds number Re = 210 are displayed in Fig. 13. With the
same condition as Fig. 13, the variations of the thermo-physical properties in the
supercritical CO2 flow are also shown in Fig. 14a. It can be seen that the average
values of thermal conductivity, viscosity, and the Prandtl number at X = 0.1, 0.5
and 0.9 are 0.078 W/(m-K), 1.57 × 10−7 m2/s and 18.3, respectively. From the
results of the numerical investigation, it is understood that, the temperature gradient
near the tube wall and the variations of thermos-physical properties lead the heat
transfer enhancement, which can be significantly improved by increasing the heat
flux. There are significant implications to a new design for the evacuated tube solar
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 19

Fig. 12 Variation of local

Nusselt number along the
tube wall at Re = 210 under
different heat fluxes ranging
from q = 100 to 800 W/m2
for supercritical CO2 [20]

Fig. 13 Evolution of the

temperature profile along the
tube wall at Re = 210 and
q = 800 W/m2 [20]

collector and other high-performance heat exchangers, indicating a great possibility

(from the numerical and experimental verification as well) that the utilization of
supercritical CO2 as a working fluid in a thermal system can improve the perfor-
mance in a great deal.

5.2 New Design Aspect for Supercritical CO2 Turbine

Turbine is a very important component to generate electric power in the super-

critical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system. To date, there is no literature available for
specific turbine design in supercritical CO2 power generation cycles. Due to the
critical state, which is the distinguish state between liquid and gas (or vapor) phase,
a specific new design for supercritical CO2 is strongly required for achieving the
best performance of system. The choked flow in nozzle, which would give a
20 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

Fig. 14 Evolution of the thermo-physical properties of supercritical CO2 at X = 0.1, 0.5 and 0.9
with Re = 210 and q = 800 W/m2, a for density and kinematic velocity, b for thermal
conductivity and Prandtl number [20]

limitation on the supercritical CO2 flow, a one-dimensional analysis of the chocked

flow in a nozzle (of a test micro-turbine) was particularly investigated amid the
result that the choked flow was indeed observed when nozzle diameter is smaller
than 0.6 mm in an experimental verification [15].
In parallel with the experiment [15], a numerical analysis was performed in order
to estimate the nozzle performance with the same configuration as the experiment.
The actual configuration of the test nozzle for the experiment is displayed in Fig. 15
for the reference. The numerical analysis is based on the one-dimensional com-
pressible gas dynamics, to which Fanno-flow type gas with the condition of con-
stant wall function (viscosity) is assumed throughout the analysis. The structural
arrangement between nozzle and turbine impeller is schematically shown in
Fig. 16. The investigation of basic design of turbine, using the test nozzle assembly
(Fig. 15) was attempted by using 1.0 mm of nozzle diameter with the length of
turbine nozzle assembly at 25, 29 and 33 mm [21].
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 21

Fig. 15 Detail of nozzle assembly [15]

Fig. 16 Installation position

between nozzle and rotor vane
[15]

The turbine performance is characterized by many factors, in which the rota-

tional speed of turbine is the main parameter in discussing its performance. Due to a
nature of the impulse turbine of the current test turbine, which is selected to use in
this study, the rotational speed of the turbine depends on the pressure and
momentum of CO2 at the outlet of nozzle. To verify the change of flow state inside
the turbine nozzle, the variation, and local flow properties (pressure, velocity and
density) of CO2 are investigated.
The numerical analysis for obtaining density, pressure, and velocity in case of
nozzle length variation up to 40 mm with 1.0 mm of nozzle diameter are calculated
and the result is displayed in Fig. 17. The calculation conditions in the Fig. 17 are
9.04 MPa, 50.8 °C and 0.60 kg/min of pressure, temperature, and mass flow rate,
respectively. From the result gained in Fig. 17, it is seen that the velocity of CO2
decreases while the density and pressure increase along with nozzle length.
In order to verify the effect of the nozzle length variation, obtained from the
numerical work (Fig. 17), some experiment result for rotational speed from an
actual test turbine with three difference condition (6.2, 6.5 and 7.0 MPa) is repre-
sented in Fig. 18 for the representative nozzle length at 25, 29, and 33 mm. As
observed in Fig. 18, the rotational speed of turbine increases with the increasing of
22 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

Fig. 17 Numerical result of

CO2 thermal physical
property in nozzle
(dn = 1.0 mm) [21]

Fig. 18 Experimental results

of rotational speed of turbine
for nozzles of 25, 29 and
33 mm (dn = 1.0 mm) [21]

pressure, indicating the increase rates (for each pressure) of the rotational speed are
almost the same. It can be understood that in the current study, the nozzle length of
33 mm (with 1.0 mm of nozzle diameter) gives the best geometric configuration for
the performance of the test turbine within the operation conditions.
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 23

5.3 Construction of Novel Thermally Driven Pump

In early development of supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system, as described,

the mechanical feed pump was preliminary installed, and which required relatively
large electric energy with large mechanical loss, resultantly making the overall
efficiency of the system to decrease. Due to these problems, there remains a
long-term need for developing a way of pressurizing and transferring working fluid
with minimum power consumption and with no mechanical loss and better relia-
bility. A novel thermally driven pump was considered as a solution with advantages
of zero power consumption and high reliability compared with the conventional
mechanical feed pumps [22]. In the progress of the current system, the mechanical
feed pump is replaced by a thermally driven pump, as the schematic of the test
device is shown in Fig. 19. The thermally driven pump is a working fluid (liquid
state CO2)-circulating pump, which consists of two expansion tanks ① with
heating/cooling apparatus in each tank ②, a CO2 inlet path ③, a CO2 discharge path
④, open/close valves ⑤, and pressure-regulating valve ⑥. In addition, a check
valve ⑦ is installed in the CO2 inlet path to prevent reverse flow. The expansion
tanks are manufactured as high-pressure vessels, working at room temperature with
a maximum operating pressure of 12 MPa.
In a trail run, the upper and lower valves are operated to control the inlet and
outlet flow of thermally driven pump. The lower valves controls CO2 flow from the
heat exchanger, while hot water is supplied subsequently for heating CO2 inside the
tanks, in which CO2 is heated up to high-pressure state. When the pressure of CO2
becomes high enough to achieve high-pressure state (around 8 MPa), the upper
valve opens and CO2 expands to be fed to evacuated tube solar collector. After CO2
flowing out from the tank, cold water is supplied to decrease pressure inside the

Fig. 19 Schematic of novel concept thermally driven pump in test setup

24 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

Fig. 20 Characteristic
p-h diagram of supercritical
CO2 Rankine cycle system
with using thermally driven
pump [11]

tanks, and then the tank is fully filled by CO2 from the heat exchanger by
high-pressure difference. Following this process, both tanks are continuously pro-
cessing heating and cooling CO2 by hot and cold water to achieve high-temperature
and high-pressure state CO2. Finally decreasing pressure in the tank makes the
device ready to charge CO2 from the heat exchanger, and system recommences.
Figure 20 shows a typical cycle p-h diagram of the supercritical CO2 solar
Rankine cycle system with the newly installed thermally driven pump. The pres-
suring process ③ to ④ is due to the thermally driven pump. The diagram indicates
that the transcritical Rankine cycle is successfully achieved with the newly installed
thermally driven pump, where the state ④ is above its critical point (31.1 °C and
7.38 MPa) and importantly the transcritical Rankine cycle can be completed with
solar heat absorption ④ to ①.
With the thermally driven pump installed in the Rankine cycle, it is to be
expected that the efficiency of the cycle with using thermally driven pump is higher
than that using a mechanical feed pump, due to the reason that there would be no
electric energy consumption and no mechanical loss with the thermally driven
pump operation. Figure 21a, b, representatively show the comparison of the system
efficiencies of the cycle while using thermally driven pump and mechanical feed
pump as the driven part to feed liquid CO2 to the evacuated tube solar collector in
the ideal and practical conditions, respectively. The conditions of the comparison in
Fig. 21a, b are those of the outlet temperature of evacuated tube solar collector and
low-temperature heat exchanger HX2 being set at 200 °C and 5 °C, respectively.
From the evidence as shown in Fig. 21a, b, it is clearly observed that the system
1 Development of Supercritical CO2 Solar Rankine Cycle System 25

Fig. 21 Comparisons of the system efficiencies of the loop system with thermally driven pump
and mechanical feed pump in a ideal and b practical conditions [11]

efficiency of the supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system while using ther-
mally driven is higher than that using mechanical feed pump. In the practical
condition, the enhancement of the system efficiency of the cycle with using ther-
mally driven pump is found approximately 3.5 % higher compared with using
mechanical feed pump at outlet pressure from evacuated tube solar collector set at
11 MPa, showing the effectiveness of the thermally driven pump in the CO2
Rankine system.

6 Summary

The supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system is proposed to contribute to give
a new solution for global warming crisis. The system is a combination of the
biggest renewable energy source and accessible to use, the solar energy, and ‘truly
natural’ working fluid, CO2, for producing a combined generation of electric power
and heat output.
Based on the proposed cycle, the supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system
has been designed, constructed, and tested. The preliminary experimental results
show that the system has high potential to collect the heat from solar radiation
during the test period. The system works well with forming the transcritical cycle
throughout the test hours, giving promising results for achieving electric power
generation and heat output with a reasonable thermodynamic efficiency. The results
on economic estimation of supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system indicate
that the system can be the path of the future energy sources for next generation in
green energy, and also give a clue for improvement of local environment issue
which might be valued.
26 H. Yamaguchi and X.-R. Zhang

For further development, intensive and innovative investigation of specific

components for supercritical CO2 solar Rankine cycle system is strongly required to
improve its performance, including a specific new design for supercritical CO2
turbine and the thermally driven pump.

Acknowledgments This study was supported by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) in
Super cluster program.

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