Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 2142–2147

www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

A comparative study of the carbon dioxide transcritical power

cycle compared with an organic rankine cycle with R123
as working fluid in waste heat recovery
a,*
Y. Chen , P. Lundqvist a, A. Johansson a, P. Platell b

a
Div. of Applied Thermodynamics and Refrigeration, Department of Energy Technology, Royal Institute of Technology,
SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
b
Ranotor AB, Tilskogsvägen 15, 193 40 Sigtuna, Sweden

Received 24 March 2005; accepted 10 April 2006

Available online 12 June 2006

Abstract

The organic rankine cycle (ORC) as a bottoming cycle1 to convert low-grade waste heat into useful work has been widely investigated
for many years. The CO2 transcritical power cycle, on the other hand, is scarcely treated in the open literature. A CO2 transcritical power
cycle (CO2 TPC) shows a higher potential than an ORC when taking the behavior of the heat source and the heat transfer between heat
source and working fluid in the main heat exchanger into account. This is mainly due to better temperature glide matching between heat
source and working fluid. The CO2 cycle also shows no pinch limitation in the heat exchanger. This study treats the performance of the
CO2 transcritical power cycle utilizing energy from low-grade waste heat to produce useful work in comparison to an ORC using R123 as
working fluid.
Due to the temperature gradients for the heat source and heat sink the thermodynamic mean temperature has been used as a reference
temperature when comparing both cycles. The thermodynamic models have been developed in EES2 The relative efficiencies have been
calculated for both cycles. The results obtained show that when utilizing the low-grade waste heat with the same thermodynamic mean
heat rejection temperature, a transcritical carbon dioxide power system gives a slightly higher power output than the organic rankine
cycle.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: ORC; Transcritical power cycle; CO2; Efficiency

1. Introduction

In recent years, the increasing consumption of fossil

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 73 658 8267; fax: +46 8 203 007.
E-mail address: yang.chen@energy.kth.se (Y. Chen).
1
The expression ‘‘bottoming cycle’’ refers to the power cycle that uses
waste industrial heat for power generation by supplementing heat from
any fossil fuel.
2
EES – Engineering equation solver. The thermodynamic properties for
carbon dioxide in EES are calculated by the fundamental equation of state
developed by R. Span and W. Wagner, A new equation of state for carbon
dioxide covering the fluid region form the triple-point temperature to
1100 K at pressures up to 800 MPa, J. Phys. Chem. Ref. Data, Vol. 25,
No. 6, 1996. http://www.fchart.com/ees/ees.shtml.
fuels has led to more and more environmental problems
such as global warming, ozone depletion and atmospheric
pollution. Further more, along with the fast development
of industry, energy shortages and blackouts have appeared
more and more frequently all over the world. Due to all
these reasons, utilizing low-grade waste heat for energy
production has attracted more and more attention for its
potential in reducing the fossil fuel consumption.
When utilizing low-grade waste heat, the traditional
steam rankine cycle does not give a satisfying performance
due to its low thermal efficiency and large volume flows;

1359-4311/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2006.04.009
 Y. Chen et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 2142–2147 2143

Nomenclature

ORC organic rankine cycle Greek Letter

CO2 carbon dioxide g cycle efficiency
EES engineering equation solver
IHX internal heat exchanger Subscripts
Theta cycle efficiency a–h points of the cycle route
TPC transcritical power cycle th Thermal

Fig. 1. Organic rankine cycle system layout and cycle T–S chart.

Fig. 2. CO2 transcritical system layout and cycle T–S chart.

and thus, so called organic rankine cycles (ORCs) have
been proposed [1–5]. These cycles use organic substances
as working fluids and the systems consist of at least five
principal components: evaporator, turbine, condenser,
pump and working fluid. To make an equal comparison
with the CO2 process later, a regenerator is also included
in the current calculation. R123 is chosen as the working
fluid in the current study due to its better performance than
other organic working fluids3 when recovering a low tem-
3
R114 has been used traditionally but is ruled out as an ozone depleting
substance (ODS), and therefore not considered in the current study.
perature waste heat [4]. Fig. 1 shows the basic ORC system
layout and the ORC schematic cycle in a T–S chart. One
advantage of ORC in utilizing the low-grade waste heat
using R123 is that there is no need to superheat the work-
ing fluid to avoid moisture erosion at the turbine outlet.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) as a non-toxic and non-combus-
tible natural refrigerant has attracted more and more inter-
ests in refrigeration applications [6]. However, it also has
many advantages as a working fluid for power cycles, e.g.
the moderate value of its critical pressure (73.8 bar), rela-
tive inertness (for the temperature range of interest) and
sufficient knowledge of its thermodynamic properties. Fur-
ther, it is inexpensive, non-explosive, and abundant in the
2144 Y. Chen et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 2142–2147
Heat source T in
Pinching
Te
T out Working fluid
Tc
0 Relative heat energy 100%
(a)
Fig. 3. Schematic representation chart of the heat transfer between waste heat and working fluid in the high temperature main heat exchanger. (a) ORC
cycle; (b) CO2 transcritical power cycle.
nature [7]. The research on CO2 power cycles is however
limited. Besides the research on CO2 Brayton cycles for
power production with nuclear reactors as heat sources
(which work with high temperature (600 C) and pressure
[7–9]) there is very little information available for power
cycle research with CO2 as working fluid in the low-grade
energy source utilization area. Due to CO2’s low critical
temperature (31.1 C), the CO2 power cycle in the current
study will be a transcritical cycle, which means part of
the cycle will be located in supercritical region. Figs. 1
and 2 present the CO2 transcritical power cycle system lay-
out and schematic cycle T–S chart.
2. Thermodynamic analysis of cycle’s potential in low-grade
waste heat recovery
Compared with an ORC, the CO2 transcritical power
cycle has a higher potential in making use of the energy
in a low-grade waste heat with gradient temperature, such
as exhaust gases. The temperature ‘‘glide’’4 for CO2 above
the critical point allows for a better matching to the heat
source temperature glide than an organic working fluid
working below the critical point. Therefore, the so-called
pinching problem, which may occur in ORC’s counter cur-
rent heat exchanger, can be avoided by carbon dioxide
transcritical power cycle [10]. This may be graphically rep-
resented as Fig. 3.
When utilizing the energy in low-grade heat source, the
enthalpy of the heat source fluid will drop with a gliding
temperature profile in the main heat exchanger during the
energy transfer process. According to Larjola’s research
[11], for a cycle that use waste heat at a moderate inlet tem-
perature (80–200 C) as heat source, the best efficiency and
highest power output is usually obtained when the working
fluid temperature profile can match the temperature file of
the heat source fluid. Therefore, if the heat transfer
between the power cycle and the heat source is taken into
4
Temperature change during take-up of heat energy. The concept
‘‘glide’’ was introduced for non-azeotropic mixtures undergoing phase
change.
Heat source T in
Te
Tout
Working fluid
Tc
0 Relative heat energy 100%
(b)
account properly, the CO2 transcritical power cycle ought
to outperform the ORC, since the supercritical ‘‘tempera-
ture glide’’ of the working fluid allows for a better match-
ing to the heat source fluid’s temperature changes.
3. Basic cycles’ performances comparison
In the current work a R123 ORC and a CO2 transcritical
power cycle are considered. Both cycles are using the same
low-grade waste heat source (exhaust gas as an example
here) with 150 C available temperature and a mass flow
of 0.4 kg/s. Both cycles are assumed to have the same com-
pression and expansion efficiencies as 0.8 and 0.7 based on
existing compressor and expander’s research [12–18]. Fur-
ther, the minimum temperature difference in the main heat
exchanger and the regenerator (IHX) are assumed to be
10 C and 5 C, respectively. To compare cycles under
equal operating conditions it is common to use the same
boiling and condensing temperatures. However, for a cycle
with sensible heat addition or rejection temperature, such
as CO2 transcritical power cycle mentioned above
(Fig. 2), the heating and cooling processes take place with
gliding temperature instead of isothermal. Therefore, an
equal reference temperature is needed to compare both
cycles equally. For a cycle with gliding temperatures, the
mean heat addition temperature will be lower that the max-
imum heat addition temperature, while the mean heat
rejection temperature will be higher than the minimum heat
rejection temperature as well. Consequently, the thermody-
namic mean temperatures can be used to define the refer-
ence temperature in heat addition or heat rejection
process for such a cycle [19]. The thermodynamic mean
temperatures for the heating and cooling processes of a
cycle with gliding temperature can be defined as follows,
respectively (Eqs. (1) and (2)):
he  hc
T eq; max ¼ ð1Þ
se  sc
and
hg  ha
T eq; min ¼ ð2Þ
sg  sa
 Y. Chen et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 2142–2147 2145

Assuming there is a sufficient heat sink available, by set- 200

8
ting the equal thermodynamic mean heat rejecting temper-

03

68
0.0

0.0
ature Teq,min to 25 C as a reference temperature, both
R123 ORC 25 bar
cycles can be compared equally. In addition, both cycles

3
150

1.9
are optimized to operate under their optimum operating
conditions for the given heat source and heat sink condi-

0. 4
tions and then being calculated in EES. For the CO2 cycle 100 5.87 bar

T [°C]
d e
this means that the gas heater pressure is chosen for best
efficiency. The results show that under the previous
c
described heat source condition, the carbon dioxide trans- 50 f
b
critical power cycle can achieve an expansion inlet temper- a
g

h
ature of 140 C at 160 bar gas heater pressure (Fig. 4), and
0.85 bar
the cycle is able to cool the heat source to 61.3 C. The 0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
R123 ORC can achieve an expansion inlet temperature as
84.8 C at 5.3 bar gas heater pressure and it is able to cool 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00
the heat source to 74 C (Fig. 5). Further, the carbon diox- s [kJ/kg-K]
ide transcritical power cycle can achieve 9.2% thermal effi- Fig. 5. R123 organic rankine cycle T–S chart (from EES calculation).
ciency, while the R123 ORC can achieve 10.6% thermal
efficiency. As a result, the power output, which is propor-
tional to the product of the cycle thermal efficiency and
the heat source’s temperature drop (assuming constant spe- 4. Discussion
cific heat of the heat source) will be proportional to
9.2% · (150  61.3) = 8.16 kW/kg of working fluid for car- Traditionally, cycle thermal efficiency is used as a crite-
bon dioxide transcritical power cycle and be proportional rion for the comparison of different power cycles or evalu-
to 10.6% · (150  74) = 8.06 kW/kg of working fluid for ating the performance of a certain power cycles. The
R123 ORC. Apparently, the carbon dioxide transcritical thermodynamic limits for the cycles are often based on
power cycle can achieve slightly better performance from Carnot efficiencies using boiling and condensation temper-
the power output point of view. Further, due to the relative atures as the reference. The thermal efficiency of a power
high working pressure, the carbon dioxide power system cycle is defined as follows:
will be much more compact than the organic rankine W net
power system as well. In addition, from the environmental gth ¼ ð3Þ
Qin
viewpoint, carbon dioxide as a natural working fluid also is
also more environmentally benign than organic working Thus, following the cycle points in Figs. 1 and 2, the sys-
fluids. tem thermal efficiency may be written as

180
0.0057

Carbon Dioxide TPC d

0.0017

140
0.01

340 bar

220 bar
100
160 bar
T [°C]

100 bar

60 e
0.019m3/kg

c
b f

60 bar
20 a g
40 bar

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

-20
-1.75 -1.50 -1.25 -1.00 -0.75 -0.50
s [kJ/kg-K]

Fig. 4. CO2 transcritical power cycle T–S chart (from EES calculation).
2146 Y. Chen et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 2142–2147

ðhe  hf Þ  ðha  hb Þ
gth ¼
ðhe  hc Þ
However, this definition is only considering the cycle
itself but not taking into account the heat source and heat
sink. Therefore, when the heat source is limited (i.e. the
temperature of the heat source will drop when being uti-
lized), using this criterion to compare different power cycles
will be misleading. Thermodynamically, for a power cycle
operating between a sensible heat source and heat sink,
the smaller the heat source and the heat sink temperature
change, the higher the cycle efficiency will be. However,
as a consequence, when the temperature changes of the
heat source and heat sink are approaching zero, the power
output will approach zero accordingly. Therefore, the high-
est performance from the viewpoint of thermodynamics
(i.e. highest cycle thermal efficiency) will lead to the lowest
power output of the cycle.
4 0.18
3 0.15
Poweroutput
To illustrate this, the cycle thermal efficiency and the
ð4Þ
cycle power output are plotted against the cycle working
fluid’s mass flow for a carbon dioxide transcritical power
cycle and a R123 ORC, respectively, under the above
described operating conditions (Figs. 6 and 7).
As showed in Fig. 6 that under the previous described
operating conditions, the thermal efficiency of the R123
ORC is decreasing with increasing cycle working fluid’s
mass flow. Nevertheless, the cycle’s power output, which
is determined by the product of the cycle’s working fluid
mass flow and the heat source temperature drop (for con-
stant heat source Cp value) is increasing first and then
decreasing after reaching its maximum. It can also be seen
that when the cycle achieves its maximum thermal effi-
ciency, the cycle’s power output is zero, as explained above.
For carbon dioxide transcritical power cycle, the mini-
mum temperature difference (the pinch) will appear at
either of the main heat exchanger ends instead of inside
the heat exchanger. When the working fluid’s mass flow
is lower than a certain value, the pinch of the main heat
exchanger appears at the carbon dioxide outlet (which is
also the heat source inlet). Since the pinch in the main heat
exchanger is set to a fixed value (10 C), the carbon dioxide
outlet temperature will also be a fixed value (140 C)
accordingly. Consequently, the cycle’s thermal efficiency

will remain constant as well, since the thermodynamic

2 0.12 mean heat rejection temperature is a constant value. How-
η eff.

ever, when the working fluid’s mass flow over a certain

value, the carbon dioxide outlet temperature starts to drop
1 0.09 and the pinch shifts to the inlet of the carbon dioxide.
Poweroutput Meanwhile, the cycle thermal efficiency, which relates to
η eff. the carbon dioxide outlet temperature, starts to decrease.
0 0.06 For the cycle’s power output, which is determined by the
0 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.16 0.2
product of the cycle’s working fluid mass flow and the heat
m r123
source temperature drop (for constant heat source Cp
Fig. 6. Efficiency and power output of R123 ORC vs. working fluid’s mass value), is increasing first and then decreasing after reaching
flow (from EES calculation). its maximum.

3.5 0.1

3
0.08
2.5
Power output (kw)

0.06
Efficiency

1.5
0.04

1 Power output
η eff. 0.02
0.5

0 0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2
Carbon dioxide mass flow (kg/s)

Fig. 7. Efficiency and power output of carbon dioxide transcritical power cycle vs. working fluid’s mass flow (from EES calculation).
 Y. Chen et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 26 (2006) 2142–2147
5. Conclusion
In this work, an organic rankine cycle using R123 as
working fluid and a CO2 transcritical power cycle have
been compared with respect to their abilities to convert
energy from low-grade waste heat to usable work. Due to
the fact that the cycle heat addition and heat rejection pro-
cesses are not isothermal (sensible heat), the thermody-
namic mean temperatures has been employed as a
reference temperature when comparing both cycles.
Both cycles are compared when utilizing a low-grade
waste heat (exhaust gas as an example here) with 150 C
available temperature and 0.4 kg/s mass flow at the same
thermodynamic mean heat rejection condition. To com-
pare them, the same pump and expansion isentropic effi-
ciencies, 80% and 70%, respectively, are assumed for both
cycles. Further, the same minimum temperature difference
in the main heat exchanger and the regenerative heat
exchanger are assumed to be 10 C and 5 C, respectively
as well. Both cycles are modelled thermodynamically in
EES and optimized to operate under their optimum work-
ing conditions. The results show that when utilizing the
low-grade heat source with equal mean thermodynamic
heat rejection temperature, the carbon dioxide transcritical
power cycle has a slightly higher power output than the
ORC. Further, the power system with carbon dioxide as
a working fluid is also more compact and more environ-
mental friendly than the one with organic working fluid
as a working media.
The current work also shows that only comparing the
thermodynamic efficiencies of cycles might be misleading,
since the highest power output is not achieved at maximum
cycle thermal efficiency when utilizing a certain heat source.
Acknowledgements
The study present in this paper is financially support by
the Swedish Energy Agency (STEM). The authors would
like to thank STEM for the sponsorship. Acknowledge-
ments are also due to Prof. Eric Granryd and Jan-Erik
Nowacki for their valuable suggestions on this paper.
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