Fluidized-Bed Heat Transfer Modeling for the Development of Particle/Supercritical-CO₂ Heat Exchanger

Concentrating solar power (CSP) technology is moving toward high-temperature and high-performance design. One technology approach is to explore high-temperature heat-transfer fluids and storage, integrated with a high-efficiency power cycle such as the supercritical carbon dioxide (s-CO₂) Brayton power cycle. The s-CO₂ Brayton power system has great potential to enable the future CSP system to achieve high solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency and to reduce the cost of power generation. Solid particles have been proposed as a possible high-temperature heat-transfer medium that is inexpensive and stable at high temperatures above 1,000°C. The particle/heat exchanger provides a connection between the particles and s-CO₂ fluid in the emerging s-CO₂ power cycles in order to meet CSP power-cycle performance targets of 50% thermal-to-electric efficiency, and dry cooling at an ambient temperature of 40°C. The development goals for a particle/s-CO₂ heat exchanger are to heat s-CO₂ to ≥720°C and to use direct thermal storage with low-cost, stable solid particles. This paper presents heat-transfer modeling to inform the particle/s-CO₂ heat-exchanger design and assess design tradeoffs. The heat-transfer process was modeled based on a particle/s-CO₂ counterflow configuration. Empirical heat-transfer correlations for the fluidized bed and s-CO₂ were used in calculating the heat-transfer area and optimizing the tube layout. A 2-D computational fluid-dynamics simulation was applied for particle distribution and fluidization characterization. The operating conditions were studied from the heat-transfer analysis, and cost was estimated from the sizing of the heat exchanger. The paper shows the path in achieving the cost and performance objectives for a heat-exchanger design.