Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico announced they completed a successful test of a new power-generating technology, delivering electricity to the local grid using an energy conversion system that they say could drive a major increase in efficiency for power plants across the U.S. and perhaps the world.

The researchers, in a news release from the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Nuclear Energy, said they developed a simple recuperated closed-loop Brayton cycle that uses supercritical carbon dioxide (CO₂) as the working fluid. The lab said the gas runs through a continuous loop of being pressurized, heated, and expanded through a turbine to generate electricity. After the fluid exits the turbine, it is cooled in a recuperator before returning to a compressor to complete the cycle.

Want to learn more about supercritical CO₂? Read this POWER Interview with a program director from the Gas Technology Institute. And go here to read a library of articles about supercritical CO₂ published by POWER in recent years.…

Read More »