High Pressure-Ratio Dry-Vane Air-Cooled Compressor (HPVACC) for Enhancing sCO2 Power Plants

Supercritical CO2 power plants have been identified by the US Department of Energy and industry leaders as a promising technology to increase efficiency, reduce capital costs, and reduce water use for electricity production. Because of the high internal operating pressures, these power plants gradually leak working fluid through turbomachinery seals. The only commercially available compressor technologies that can recover these fluid leaks have very high maintenance requirements, limiting the commercial viability of supercritical CO2 power production. The proposed project seeks to develop a novel compressor technology with long maintenance intervals to satisfy this need and enable broad adoption of supercritical CO2 power plants. The team will develop a novel oil-free rotary vane compressor technology that can operate at the low flow-rate, high pressure-ratio, and long maintenance intervals needed for seal gas recovery in supercritical CO2 power plants. By Phase I completion, a prototype compressor unit will be tested at relevant conditions. The project team will first survey emerging supercritical CO2 power plant designs to define detailed specifications for the seal gas recovery compressor. A complete compressor design will be developed, built, and experimentally evaluated under relevant conditions. The team will perform a detailed market study and interview prospective customers to define a path to commercialization. This STTR project will lead to the development and demonstration of a first-of-kind compressor for the challenging seal gas recovery from supercritical CO2 power plants. Market studies forecast more than 200 supercritical CO2 plant installations in the coming decade, each of which would incorporate multiple seal gas recovery compressors. This represents a promising commercial opportunity for this technology. This technology can also be applied to leakage recovery in natural gas pipeline recompression stations, which currently account for 10% of methane emissions for the US oil and gas sector. The team anticipates a commercial product launch upon the completion of Phase II for supercritical CO2 power plant and gas pipeline industries.