Effects of Intercooling and Inter-Stage Heat Recovery on the Performance of Two-Stage Transcritical CO 2 Cycles for Residential Heating Applications

Juanli Ma, Ahmad Mhanna, Neil Juan, Monica Brands and Alan S. Fung
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Juanli Ma: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
Ahmad Mhanna: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
Neil Juan: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
Monica Brands: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
Alan S. Fung: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 24, 1-15

Abstract: Due to the harmful effects of synthetic refrigerants, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs)n the environment, natural refrigerants like carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) have been attracting great interest. The higher inter-stage superheating of CO 2 makes it difficult to predict the effects of the intercooling on heating performance of a two-stage transcritical CO 2 cycle. In addition, very little is known about the potential of inter-stage heat rejection recovery in the heating performance enhancement of this cycle. In order to explore the effects of intercooling and inter-stage heat rejection recovery potential, three “sub-cycles”—(1) a sub-cycle with heat recovery, (2) a sub-cycle without heat recovery, and (3) a sub-cycle without intercooling—were modeled in Engineering Equation Solver (EES) software for three commonly-used two-stage transcritical cycles: (1) an intercooler cycle, (2) a flash cycle, and (3) a split cycle. Then, the discharge pressure and intermediate pressure were simultaneously optimized. Based on the optimization results, the heating performance of the sub-cycles for each cycle were compared. The results demonstrate that the incorporation of intercooling without heat recovery was detrimental to the heating performance in comparison to the absence of intercooling. It is also clear that there is a great potential for heating performance improvement through inter-stage heat recovery.

Keywords: transcritical CO 2 cycle; two-stage; performance; heating applications (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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