Brayton cycle [image credit: Wikipedia]
Efficiency gains can be made as ‘energy is lost turning steam back into water’, which doesn’t apply to the CO2. Whether the idea can be scaled up to full electricity grid level isn’t yet known.
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Sandia National Laboratories researchers recently delivered electricity produced by a new power-generating system to the Sandia-Kirtland Air Force Base electrical grid, says Green Car Congress.
The system uses heated supercritical carbon dioxide instead of steam to generate electricity and is based on a closed-loop Brayton cycle.
The Brayton cycle is named after 19th century engineer George Brayton, who developed this method of using hot, pressurized fluid to spin a turbine, much like a jet engine.
Supercritical carbon dioxide is a non-toxic, stable material that is under so much pressure it acts like both a liquid and a gas.
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