Energy 36 (2011) 549e555

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Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

A supercritical Rankine cycle using zeotropic mixture working fluids for the
conversion of low-grade heat into power
Huijuan Chen, D. Yogi Goswami*, Muhammad M. Rahman, Elias K. Stefanakos
Clean Energy Research Center, College of Engineering, ENB 118, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Avenue, Tampa, FL 33620, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A supercritical Rankine cycle using zeotropic mixture working fluids for the conversion of low-grade heat
Received 2 March 2010 into power is proposed and analyzed in this paper. Unlike a conventional organic Rankine cycle,
Received in revised form a supercritical Rankine cycle does not go through the two-phase region during the heating process. By
30 September 2010
adopting zeotropic mixtures as the working fluids, the condensation process also happens non-
Accepted 2 October 2010
isothermally. Both of these features create a potential for reducing the irreversibilities and improving the
Available online 30 October 2010
system efficiency. A comparative study between an organic Rankine cycle and the proposed supercritical
Rankine cycle shows that the proposed cycle can achieve thermal efficiencies of 10.8e13.4% with the
Keywords:
Supercritical Rankine cycle
cycle high temperature of 393 Ke473 K as compared to 9.7e10.1% for the organic Rankine cycle, which is
Zeotropic mixture an improvement of 10e30% over the organic Rankine cycle. When including the heating and conden-
Organic Rankine cycle sation processes in the system, the system exergy efficiency is 38.6% for the proposed supercritical
Low-grade heat Rankine cycle as compared to 24.1% for the organic Rankine cycle.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction system requires specialized equipment to separate the vapor phase

Low-grade heat such as geothermal, waste heat, and heat from
low to mid temperature solar collectors, accounts for 50% or more
of the total heat generated worldwide [1]. Due to the fact that
conventional steam Rankine cycle does not allow efficient energy
conversion at low temperatures [1e5], organic Rankine cycle (ORC)
has been extensively studied for the conversion of low-grade heat
into power for its simplicity and relatively high efficiency [1e15].
However, an important limitation of the ORC with a pure working
fluid is the isothermal boiling, which creates a bad thermal match
between the working fluid and the heat source due to the pinch
point, leading to large irreversibilities. Use of mixtures [16e23] and
supercritical fluids [24e26] can reduce this problem.
Supercritical Rankine cycles (SRC) have been studied to improve
the performance of the energy conversion at low temperatures
[26e29]. In contrast to a conventional ORC, the working fluid of an
SRC is heated directly from liquid state into supercritical state,
bypassing the two-phase region, which allows it to have a better
thermal match with the heat source, resulting in less exergy
destruction [28]. Furthermore, in a conventional ORC, the boiling
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 813 974 0956; fax: þ1 813 974 5250.
E-mail address: goswami@usf.edu (D.Y. Goswami).
from the liquid phase, while a supercritical system simplifies that.
The choice of working fluids is of key importance for the
performance of an SRC. Carbon dioxide has been studied as the
working fluid of SRCs by a number of investigators [25,30,31].
Zhang et al. [32,33] conducted research on a CO2-based SRC, and
reported the power generation efficiency of the cycle to be 8.0%e
11.4%, depending on the working condition. Chen et al. [29] did
a comparative study between a CO2-based SRC and an R123-based
ORC, finding that under the same thermodynamic mean heat
rejection temperature, the CO2-based SRC gives a slightly higher
power output than the R123-based ORC. However, the CO2-based
SRC operates under pressures as high as 16 MPa, while condensing
the carbon dioxide is also a challenge due to its low condensation
temperature. Beside carbon dioxide, fluids such as hydrocarbons
[32] and refrigerants R134a, R227ea, R236fa and R245fa have also
been studied as the working fluids in SRCs, and the results showed
that the thermal efficiency could improve by 10%e20%, compared
to the same working fluids used in ORCs [4,28,33e35].
A review of the literature shows that all of the research on SRCs
has been limited to pure fluids. While SRC using a pure working fluid
does overcome the pinch point limitations of ORCs during the
heating process, the condensation process is still isothermal. Our
research introduces the novel concept of using zeotropic mixtures as
the working fluids in an SRC, which results in much lower exergy
destruction during both boiling and condensation, and, therefore,

0360-5442/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.energy.2010.10.006
550 H. Chen et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 549e555
higher efficiencies. This study compares the performance of
a conventional ORC with a zeotropic mixture-based SRC under the
same temperature limits, which shows the advantages of the zeo-
tropic mixture-based SRC.
2. Zeotropic mixture-based supercritical Rankine cycle
2.1. Cycle configuration and processes
Fig. 1 shows the basic configuration and a T-s diagram of the
proposed SRC. The working fluid is pumped above its critical
pressure, and then heated from the liquid to the supercritical state
directly; the supercritical fluid expands in the turbine, generating
power; the exhaust fluid from the turbine is condensed, thus
completing the cycle. The proposed SRC using zeotropic mixtures as
the working fluids has two important features: in the heating
process (process 2/3 in Fig. 1(b)), the working fluid is heated
directly to a supercritical state from the liquid phase; and in the
condensation process (process 4/1 in Fig. 1(b)), the working fluid
is condensed isobarically but non-isothermally. Both of these
features results in temperature glides which allow us to reduce
irrversibilities of the heat transfer processes during the heating and
condensation.
2.2. Zeotropic mixtures as the working fluids
Zeotropic mixtures of refrigerants are the potential candidates
for the proposed SRC due to their thermophysical properties and
stability. Over 50 refrigerants were considered, however, some of
them were rejected due to environmental concerns [36]. Beside the
environmental concerns, some refrigerants are not suitable because
of their thermophysical properties, such as a low critical tempera-
ture, which would be a challenge for the condensation process [37].
In consideration of their environmental impacts and thermophys-
ical properties, 22 refrigerants, listed in Table 1, are screened as the
potential candidates for designing the zeotropic mixtures. In order
to take advantage of non-isothermal condensation, only those
mixtures that can create thermal glides greater than 3 K during the
condensation process are considered.
3. Comparative study of an organic Rankine cycle and the
proposed supercritical Rankine cycle
In order to investigate the performance of the proposed SRC
with zeotropic mixture working fluids, it was compared with an
ORC over the same temperature range. A zeotropic mixture of
R134a and R32 (0.7/0.3, mass fraction) is used as the working fluid
Fig. 1. Configuration and processes of a zeotropic mixture supercritical Rankine cycle.
of the SRC, while pure R134a is considered as the working fluid of
the ORC. A zeotropic mixture of 0.7R134a and 0.3R32 is considered
safe and environmentally friendly and has been used in refrigera-
tion systems [36], while pure R134a is often used as the working
fluid of ORCs [1,9,38] and refrigeration cycles.
A T-s diagram of an ORC using R134a as the working fluid is
shown in Fig. 2, while an SRC using the zeotropic mixture of
0.7R134a/0.3R32 is shown in Fig. 3. The thermal efficiencies and the
net work output of the thermodynamic cycles, the exergy effi-
ciencies of the condensing processes, and the exergy efficiencies of
the heating processes are analyzed in this section for both cycles
with the cycle high temperature in the range of 393 Ke473 K.
Properties of the working fluids for this simulation are obtained by
process simulation software ChemCADÒ and NIST database.
3.1. Thermal efficiencies and net work outputs of the cycles
The thermal efficiencies and the net work outputs of the two
cycles are investigated for the turbine inlet temperature of
393 Ke473 K and average condensing temperature of 309.5 K. The
pump and turbine efficiencies are set both at 85% for both cycles.
The cycle high pressure of the 134a-based ORC is set to be
3.3 MPa (critical pressure 4.06 MPa), and that of the zeotropic
mixture-based SRC is 7 MPa (critical pressure 5.13 MPa) in the
simulation. The low pressures of the cycles are determined by the
average condensation temperature of 309.5 K.
The computed thermal efficiencies of the ORC and the SRC are
shown in Fig. 4(a). Over the investigated cycle high temperature
range (393 Ke473 K), the thermal efficiency of the ORC using pure
R134a is 9.70e10.13%, while that of the SRC using the zeotropic
mixture is 10.77e13.35%, showing 10e30% increase over the
R134a-based ORC. Fig. 4(a) also shows that the thermal efficiency of
the R134a-based ORC has no significant increase as the cycle high
temperature is increased from 393 K to 473 K.
The above simulations were based on constant cycle high pres-
sures. Computations were also made with changing cycle high
pressures in order to optimize the cycle thermal efficiencies.
Assuming the minimum vapor quality at the turbine exit is 90%, the
optimized thermal efficiency of the SRC is shown with a dotted line
in Fig. 4(a). Comparing it with the efficiency of the SRC working at
7 MPa (continuous line in Fig. 4(a)), it is seen that there is a signifi-
cant improvement at higher cycle temperatures. Fig. 4(b) shows the
cycle high pressure of the SRC for optimized thermal efficiency. It is
observed that in order to get the optimized thermal efficiency of
15.08% at 473 K, the pressure of the cycle is as high as 33 MPa. A high
pressure like that could be a concern in real practice. The analysis of
optimized thermal efficiency is only to show that there is a potential
 H. Chen et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 549e555 551

Table 1
The screened 22 refrigerants for synthesizing zeotropic mixtures.

ASHRAE Number Name Molecular Weight Critical Temperature (K) Critical Pressure (MPa) GWP 100yra ODPb
R-21 Dichlorofluoromethane 102.92 451.48 5.18 210 0.01
R-22 Chlorodifluoromethane 86.47 369.30 4.99 1700 0.03
R-23 Trifluoromethane 70.01 299.29 4.83 N/A 0.00
R-32 Difluoromethane 52.02 351.26 5.78 550 0.00
R-41 Fluoromethane 34.03 317.28 5.90 97 0.00
R-116 Hexafluoroethane 138.01 293.03 3.05 11,900 0.00
R-123 2,2-Dichloro-1,1,1-trifluoroethane 152.93 456.83 3.66 120 0.01
R-124 2-Chloro-1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane 136.48 395.43 3.62 620 0.03
R-125 Pentafluoroethane 120.02 339.17 3.62 3400 0.00
R-134a 1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane 102.03 374.21 4.06 1300 0.02
R-141b 1,1-Dichloro-1-fluoroethane 116.95 477.50 4.21 700 0.09
R-142b 1-Chloro-1,1-difluoroethane 100.50 410.26 4.06 2400 0.04
R-143a 1,1,1-Trifluoroethane 84.04 345.86 3.76 4300 0.00
R-152a 1,1-Difluoroethane 66.05 386.41 4.52 120 0.00
R-218 Octafluoropropane 188.02 345.02 2.64 8600 0.00
R-227ea 1,1,1,2,3,3,3-Heptafluoropropane 170.03 375.95 3.00 3500 0.00
R-236ea 1,1,1,2,3,3-Hexafluoropropane 152.04 412.44 3.50 9400 0.00
R-245ca 1,1,2,2,3-Pentafluoropropane 134.05 447.57 3.93 560 0.00
R-245fa 1,1,1,3,3-Pentafluoropropane 134.05 427.20 3.64 900 0.00
R-C318 Octafluorocyclobutane 200.03 388.38 2.78 10,000 0.00
R-3-1-10 Decafluorobutane 238.03 386.33 2.32 8600 0.00
FC-4-1-12 Dodecafluoropentane 288.03 420.56 2.05 9160 0.00
a
GWP (Global Warming Potential) 100 yr, is a measure of how much a given mass of a gas contributes to global warming over 100 years. GWP is a relative scale which
compares the greenhouse gas to Carbon dioxide where GWP by definition is 1.
b
ODP (Ozone Depletion Potential), is the relative amount of degradation a chemical compound can cause to the ozone layer.

for improvement of the SRC. However, the following analysis of the
SRC is still based on a constant cycle high pressure of 7 MPa.
The net work outputs per unit mass of working fluid of the two
cycles are shown in Fig. 5. It is seen that the net work output of the
SRC is higher than that of the ORC and the difference between them
increases with the increase of the cycle high temperature. At 473 K,
the SRC provides 38.9% more net work compared to the ORC.
3.2. Exergy efficiency of the condensing process
Exergy analyses are conducted in this section to study the
condensation processes of pure R134a in the ORC and the zeotropic
mixture of 0.7R134a/0.3R32 in the SRC, which processes are shown
in Figs. 6 and 7, respectively. The working fluids are condensed from
saturated vapor at point ⓓ to saturated liquid at point ⓐ by
dissipating the heat to the cooling fluid. The thermal matches
between the working fluids and the cooling fluids are shown at on
the top left corners of the figures. For the purpose of calculation,
water is used as the cooling fluid in this study. The exergy analyses
of the condensation processes in the two cycles are conducted
under the average condensation temperature of 309.5 K. The mass
flow rate of the working fluids is set at 1 kg/s, and the heat
exchanger pinch limitation is set at 8 K.
Based on the average condensing temperature of 309.5 K, the
pure R134a is condensed isobarically at 0.92 MPa (Fig. 6), while
the zeotropic mixture is condensed isobarically at 1.4 MPa with the
condensation commencing at a temperature of 312.37 K (point ⓓ in
Fig. 7) and ending at a temperature of 306.6 K (point ⓐ in Fig. 7).

Fig. 2. Processes of an organic Rankine cycle using R134a as the working fluid Fig. 3. Processes of a supercritical Rankine cycle using the zeotropic mixture of R134a
(ⓐ/ⓑ/ⓒ/ⓓ0 /ⓓ). and R32 as the working fluid (ⓐ/ⓑ/ⓒ/ⓓ0 /ⓓ).
552 H. Chen et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 549e555

Fig. 5. Net work outputs of the R134a-based organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and the
zeotropic mixture-based supercritical Rankine cycle (SRC).

their temperatures and fluid types. The flow rate of the cooling
water is calculated to be 8.37 kg/s from equation (1).
The net change in the flow exergy rate from saturated vapor
(point ⓓ in Fig. 7 to saturated liquid point ⓐ in Fig. 7) for the
zeotropic mixture is computed to be 383.05 kW using the
following equation, neglecting the effects of motion and gravity
[39]:

 


DE_ zeo ¼ m
_ zeo e  e
 
ˇ ˇ _ zeo
¼ m h  d  T0 s  s
ˇ

ˇ

ˇ ˇ
ⓐa ⓓa ⓐa ⓓa ⓐ
a 
ⓓa
(2)
where T0 is the dead-state temperature, 273K.
Similarly, the change in the flow exergy rate from the inlet to the
outlet for the cooling water is found to be 312.72 kW by using the
following equation (3):

Fig. 4. Thermal efficiencies of the R134a-based organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and the
zeotropic mixture-based supercritical Rankine cycle (SRC).

Since the zeotropic mixture creates a thermal glide when

condensed isobarically, the heat exchange process can be designed
such that the temperature profile of the cooling water parallels that
of the working fluid to obtain the best thermal match. Under this
design, the mass flow rate of cooling water can be found from the
energy balance of the condenser at steady state:



m ˇ _ zeo h  h
_ water h  h þ m ˇ ¼ 0 ˇ ˇ (1)
①
a ②
a 
ⓓa 
ⓐa

where m _ water is the mass flow rate of the cooling water, h① and h②
denote the enthalpies of the cooling water at points ① and ②,
_ zeo is the mass flow rate of the
respectively (See Fig. 7). Similarly, m
zeotropic mixture being condensed; hⓓ and hⓐ are the enthalpies
of the zeotropic mixture at points ⓓ and ⓐ, respectively. The
enthalpy values of all the four points can be obtained according to Fig. 6. Condensing process of R134a and its thermal match with the cooling fluid.
 H. Chen et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 549e555 553

Table 2
Comparison of the condensation process of the two working fluids in the cycles.

Working Fluid R134a Zeotropic mixtureb

a
Working fluid Temperature (K) Point ⓓ 309.5 312.4
Point ⓐa 309.5 306.6
Cooling Water Temperature (K) Point ①a 293.7 298.6
Point ②a 301.5 304.4
Exergy Efficiency (%) 66.55 81.64
a
Refer to Figs. 6 and 7 for point ⓓ, ⓐ, ② and ①.
b
Zeotropic mixture of R32 and R134a (0.3/0.7, mass fraction).

processes of the two cycles with the thermal match shown on the
top left corners. The working fluids are heated from state ⓑ to state
ⓒ by a sensible heat source in counterflow heat exchangers in both
cycles.
Pressurized hot water (P ¼ 0.5 MPa) at 410 K is applied as the
heat source for the sake of this simulation. The working fluids in
both cycles with mass flow rates of 1 kg/s are heated to 400 K, and
the pinch limitation is set at 10 K.
The mass flow rate of the heat source is just enough to heat the
working fluids to 400 K and meet the pinch limitation of 10 K
throughout the heat exchange process.
In the ORC, the pinch limitation is reached at the saturated liquid
Fig. 7. Condensing process of the zeotropic mixture of R134a and R32 and its thermal
match with the cooling fluid.
point during the heating process (Fig. 8). Since there is no obvious
pinch point for the zeotropic mixture, multiple points are tested

 

 during the calculation. The heating processes of the pure R134a in
the ORC and the zeotropic mixture of 0.7 R134a/0.3R32 in the SRC
DE_ water ¼ m
_ water e  e
 
ˇ ˇ _ water
¼ m h h
ˇ
 
ˇ  T0 s  s
ˇ

ˇ

②a ①a ②a ①a ②a ①a are analyzed and the results listed in Table 3.
(3) It is seen from Table 3 that the discharge temperature of the heat
source in the R134a-based ORC is 24 K higher than that in the
The exergetic efficiency of the heat exchange process for zeotropic mixture-based SRC (point ④ in ④ Figs. 8 and 9), which
condensing the zeotropic mixture can then be calculated from the indicates that the effective utilization of the heat source is much
following equation to be 81.64%: less in the R134a-based ORC than that of the 0.7R134a/0.3R32-
based SRC. Such result is also obvious by comparing the exergy


efficiencies of the heating process of the two cycles with the SRC
_ water e  e
m
DE_
ˇ ˇ
 ② showing 7.30% higher exergy efficiency of the heating process than
e ¼  _water ¼
①a a
(4) that of the pure R134a in the ORC.
DEzeo _
mzeo e  e ˇ ˇ

ⓐa 
ⓓa
4. System results and discussion
With the same flow rate of cooling water and the aforesaid
design and operating parameters, the enthalpy of the inlet cooling For a system composed of a heat source, a power cycle and a heat
water (h①) in the R134a-based ORC can be found by the following sink, the two systems have been studied for their performance in the
equation: heat transfer from the heat source to the power cycle, the thermal
efficiency of power cycle, and the heat dissipation from the power



_ water h  h þ m
m ˇ _ R134a h  h
ˇ ¼ 0 ˇ ˇ (5)
①
a ②
a 
ⓓa 
ⓐa

The net changes in the flow exergy rate of the pure R134a and its
cooling water can be found through Equations (2) and (3), except that
the working fluid is pure R134a. The exergetic efficiency of the heat
exchange process for condensing pure R134a is calculated to be 66.55%.
Detailed results of the condensation processes in both cycles are
listed in Table 2. It can be observed from Table 2 that the thermal
glide of the zeotropic mixture is 312.4K  306.6 K ¼ 5.8 K, while
there is no thermal glide created by pure R134a. The cooling water
temperature required by pure R134a is 293.7 K, which is 4.8 K lower
than that of the zeotropic mixture. Exergy efficiency indicates the
percentage of usable energy conserved during the condensation
process. It is seen that the exergy efficiency of the 0.7R134a/0.3R32
condensation process is 22.67% higher than that of pure R134a.

3.3. Exergy efficiency of the heating process

In this section, exergy analyses of the heating processes of the

two cycles are carried out. Figs. 8 and 9 present the heating Fig. 8. Heating process of R134a and its thermal match with the heat source.
554 H. Chen et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 549e555

Table 4
Comparison of the efficiency between the organic Rankine cycle and the super-
critical Rankine cycle.a

Working fluid & Thermodynamic cycle R134a, ORC Zeotropic mixture,b SRC
Cycle exergy efficiency(%) 43.82 53.28
Condensing process exergy efficiency(%) 66.55 81.64
Heating process exergy efficiency(%) 82.64 88.67
System total exergy efficiency(%) 24.10 38.57
a
Computation based on the cycle high temperature of 400 K.
b
Zeotropic mixture of R32 and R134a (0.3/0.7, mass fraction).

5. Conclusions

A supercritical Rankine cycle (SRC) using a zeotropic mixture as

Fig. 9. Heating process of the zeotropic mixture of R134a and R32 and its thermal
match with the heat source.
cycle to the heat sink. The 0.7R134a/0.3R32 zeotropic mixture-based
SRC shows advantages over the pure R134a-based ORC in all of the
aspects that have been analyzed, the results being summarized in
Table 4. Comparing the two cycles, the SRC improves the cycle
thermal efficiency, exergy efficiency of the condensation process
and the exergy efficiency of the heating process by 21.57%, 22.67%,
and 7.30%, respectively over the ORC using R134a.
The exergy efficiencies of the two systems are also calculated by
multiplying the exergy efficiencies of the heating processes, the
energy conversion cycle and the condensation processes of the
respective system, which results are also listed in Table 4. It is
noticed that the total exergy efficiency of the SRC system is 38.57%,
which is a 60.04% improvement over that of the ORC (24.10%).
The zeotropic mixture of 0.7R134a/0.3R32 considered as the
working fluid of the SRC in this study may not always be the best
choice. It can be observed from Fig. 4 that there is little gain in
thermal efficiency when the cycle high temperature is beyond
433 K, which indicates that the zeotropic mixture of 0.7R134a/
0.3R32 may be a good choice for heat sources with temperatures
below 433 K, while there may be other mixtures which could
perform better above 433 K. One should be able to compose other
zeotropic mixtures from the screened 22 fluids in Table 1 for
different temperature applications. More detailed discussion on the
working fluids is given in our review on thermodynamic cycles for
low-grade heat conversion [37]. Beside the temperature consider-
ations, it is recommended that a zeotropic mixture to be used as the
working fluid of an SRC should have a thermal glide during the
condensation process in order to take advantage of non-isothermal
condensation.
Table 3
Comparison of the heating process of the two working fluids in the cycles.
the working fluid has been proposed in this paper. The performance
of the proposed cycle is investigated through a comparative study
of a SRC and an ORC working under the same thermal conditions. It
was found that the SRC using a zeotropic mixture of 0.7R134a/
0.3R32 can achieve thermal efficiency of 10.77e13.35% with the
cycle high temperature of 393e453 K as compared to 9.70e10.13%
from an ORC using pure R134a working fluid under the same
thermal conditions. The SRC using the zeotropic mixture also
improves the heat exchange processes: the exergy efficiencies of
the heating and condensation processes for the zeotropic mixture
are 88.67% and 81.64%, respectively, as compared to 82.65% and
66.55% for the pure R134a in ORC. Overall, the system exergy effi-
ciency of the SRC using the zeotropic mixture of 0.7R134a/0.3R32 is
38.57%, while that of the ORC using pure R134a is 24.10%.
From the more than 50 refrigerants considered, 22 fluids were
screened out as the potential candidates for composing zeotropic
mixtures in consideration of their environmental impacts and
thermophysical properties. One should be able to compose various
zeotropic mixtures from these fluids for different temperature
applications. It is recommended that a zeotropic mixture to be used
as the working fluid of a supercritical Rankine cycle should have
a certain thermal glide in the condensation process in order to take
advantage of non-isothermal condensation.
Acknowledgement
The research leading to this paper was funded by the State of
Florida through the Florida Energy Systems Consortium (FESC) funds.
Appendix. Error analysis
PengeRobinson Equation of State [40] was used to get the
properties of the working fluid, which is:
RT aðTÞ
P ¼ 
V  b VðV þ bÞ þ bðV  bÞ
where
R2 T2c
aðTÞ ¼ 0:45724 alphaðTÞ
Pc
RTc
b ¼ 0:07780
Pc

Working Fluid R134a Zeotropic mixtureb 
2

T
Heat Source Temperature (K) Point ③a
410.0 410.0 alphaðTÞ ¼ 1 þ k 1  squrt
Point ④a 355.7 331.7
Tc
Working Fluid Temperature (K) Point ⓑa 309.5 306.6
Point ⓒa 400.0 400.0
k ¼ 0:37464 þ 1:54226w  0:26992w2
Exergy Efficiency (%) 82.64 88.67
a
Refer to Figs. 8 and 9 for point ③, ④, ⓑ and ⓒ. Substituting a(T), b, alpha(T),and k into the equation of state
b
Zeotropic mixture of R32 and R134a (0.3/0.7, mass fraction). gives:
 H. Chen et al. / Energy 36 (2011) 549e555 555

R2 T2C 
 

T 2
RT 0:45724 þ 0:37464 þ 1:54226w  0:26992w2 1  squrtTC
PC 1
P ¼      
V  0:07780RT V V þ 0:07780RT RTC
V  0:07780RT
RC þ 0:07780 PC
C C C
PC PC

The acentric factor w is a constant, 0.7. Thus the equation of state of
a fluid is a function of its critical temperature Tc, and critical pres-
sure Pc.
In order to validate the property of the working fluids that used
in the investigation, a comparison between the data from NIST and
ChemCAD is carried out in the following.
The critical temperature and critical pressure data from the two
data sources are tabulated below.
Data Source R134a R32
Tc (K) Pc (MPa) Tc (K)
NIST 374.21 4.0593 351.26
ChemCAD 374.23 4.0603 351.60
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P [24] Chen Y. Novel cycles using carbon dioxide as working fluid: new ways to
2
ðTck Tc Þ
The standard division of Tc is sTc ¼ k
N ¼ 0:34K.
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P [25] Chen Y, Lundqvist P, Platell P. Theoretical research of carbon dioxide power
ðPck Pc Þ2
The standard division of Pc is sPc ¼ k
N ¼ 0:0482MPa.
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