The Department of Energy on Tuesday announced the selection of six projects dealing with advanced turbine and supercritical CO2-based power cycles to receive a total of $30 million in research funding from the National Energy Technology Laboratory. “The use of these power cycles are attractive in comparison to steam because the thermophysical properties of sCO2 allow for higher power outputs in a smaller package. This reduced size increases efficiency and potentially reduces the cost of electricity. Two awards have been selected to develop oxy-combustion technology and turbo-expander seals to advance the state of the art for direct and indirect sCO2 power cycles,” according to a DOE release.
The six projects selected for funding are over the next 3.5 years: Aerojet Rocketdyne’s Rotating Detonation Combustion for Gas Turbines; GE Global Research’s Development of Low-Leakage Seals for Utility-Scale sCO2 Turbines; GE Power’s Cooled High-Temperature Ceramic Matrix Composite Nozzles for Gas Turbines for 65 Percent Efficiency; GE Power’s Advanced Multi-Tube Mixer Combustion for 65 Percent Efficiency; Siemens Energy’s Ceramic Matrix Composite Advanced Transition for 65 Percent Combined-Cycle Efficiency; and the Southwest Research Institute’s High-Inlet Temperature Combustor for Direct-Fired Supercritical Oxy-combustion.
