A Feasibility Study of CO2-Based Rankine Cycle Powered by Solar Energy

An experiment study was carried out in order to investigate feasibility of CO₂-based Rankine cycle powered by solar energy. The proposed cycle is to achieve a cogeneration of heat and power, which consists of evacuated solar tube collectors, power generating turbine, heat recovery system, and feed pump. The Rankine cycle of the system utilizes solar collectors to convert CO₂ into high-temperature supercritical state, used to drive a turbine and produce electrical power. The cycle also recovers thermal energy, which can be used for absorption refrigerator, air conditioning, hot water supply so on for a building. A set of experimental set-up was constructed to investigate the performance of the CO₂-based Rankine cycle. The results show the cycle can achieve production of heat and power with reasonable thermodynamics efficiency and has a great potential of the application of the CO₂-based Rankine cycle powered by solar energy. In addition, some research interests related to the present study will also be discussed in this paper.