【Ten Years of Rapid Development in Chemical Engineering Equipment】The world’s first commercial supercritical carbon dioxide power generation unit was successfully put into operation in Liupanshui, Guizhou, from 2911 to 2025
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Let’s give praise and encouragement to the achievements made in China’s chemical engineering technology and equipment; your participation in discussions is the greatest encouragement. **********************【Ten Years of Progress in Chemical Engineering Equipment】Regular updates and summaries are available – feel free to join the discussions: https://bbs.hcbbs.com/thread-3576046-1-1.html ***************** The world’s first commercial supercritical carbon dioxide power generation unit was successfully put into operation in Liupanshui, Guizhou. On December 20th, the world’s first commercial supercritical carbon dioxide power generation unit was successfully commissioned at Shougang Shuicheng Iron and Steel (Group) Co., Ltd. in Liupanshui, Guizhou. This is the world’s first demonstration project for supercritical carbon dioxide waste heat power generation technology, named \"Chao Tan No.1\". Compared with the existing sintering waste heat steam power generation technology, it can increase power generation efficiency by over 85% and boost net power output by more than 50%. How does this amazing new technology enable more efficient energy conversion? Reporters from Chuan Guan News interviewed the project team at the China Nuclear Power Research and Design Institute. Previously, the achievements of the key technology project on thermodynamic conversion using supercritical carbon dioxide won the first prize in the Sichuan Province Technology Invention Award. Photo provided by the Nuclear Power Institute. Generating electricity using “carbon dioxide”: a new competitive field worldwide. What is supercritical carbon dioxide? We know that water has three states: solid, liquid, and gas. As the temperature and pressure of the environment increase, the point at which the phase boundary between the liquid and gas phases disappears is called the critical point; the state of a substance beyond this critical point is known as the supercritical state. Similar to water, carbon dioxide also has a supercritical state. “When the temperature of carbon dioxide exceeds 31°C and the pressure rises above 73 atmospheres, carbon dioxide enters a supercritical state. ”said Chief Designer Huang Yanping. At this point, carbon dioxide is neither a gas nor a liquid, but it possesses the advantages of both: it has a high density like a liquid, and it has low viscosity and is easy to compress like a gas. Through extensive research both domestically and internationally, scientists believe that carbon dioxide in its supercritical state is the \"ideal candidate\" for power generation – compared to water, it possesses greater strength and higher efficiency, which forms the basis for its ability to transfer energy effectively. “Supercritical carbon dioxide can be regarded as an ‘super courier’ for transporting energy. ”The team used an analogy: applying this to a power generation system involves only four steps – receiving the order and gathering the energy, rapid \"delivery\" of that energy for power generation, \"returning\" to cool down, and then returning to its initial state so as to continue the process of \"delivery\" driven by the compressor. “It does not produce energy; instead, it continuously converts thermal energy into electrical energy, thereby improving the utilization rate of thermal energy and achieving higher power generation efficiency. ” Theory is becoming reality. Today, this disruptive technology has become the focus of global competition. Abroad, in 2015 the United States classified this technology as a **strategic cutting-edge technology in the energy sector**, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in industrial validation and demonstration projects; countries such as Japan, France, South Korea, ***, and the Czech Republic have also continued to pursue this area of research. At present, our country has included this technology in the \"14th Five-Year Plan for Scientific and Technological Innovation in the Energy Sector,\" with various universities, research institutions, and enterprises across the country working together to advance it.
Braving the \"unexplored territories,\" 15 years of relentless effort have led to global leadership; new technologies mean exploring from scratch. In 2009, the team began research on supercritical carbon dioxide power conversion technology. At that time, this technology was completely unknown in the country, and the team faced a situation where it lacked expertise in design, manufacturing, and testing. “There are no precedents to follow; one has to raise the funds themselves, and they also face various forms of skepticism. ”Nevertheless, the team led by Huang Yanping, with an average age of around 30, remains confident, “because we know this technology is feasible.” ” Project team for key technologies in thermodynamic conversion using supercritical carbon dioxide. Photo provided by the Nuclear Power Institute. Old methods cannot be applied to new technologies, so the team took bold steps to explore new approaches. Specifically, the challenges to overcome lie in the “two machines and three devices,” namely the key equipment such as heat sources, turbines, compressors, and heat exchangers used in this technology. Firstly, the heat exchange faces tremendous pressure. Huang Yanping used an analogy: supercritical carbon dioxide heat exchange is like a strong man carrying sacks at a dock; having great strength, he can carry several sacks at a time. But the problem is that tools are needed to help move the heavy sacks from the dock onto the strong men’s shoulders. “A heat exchanger is such a tool that transfers energy from a heat source to a working fluid. ” However, the country was facing a technological blockade at that time. Huang Yanping remembers that in 2017, when he went to investigate the only foreign company in the world that possessed this technology, the company was evasive, showing only a sample and refusing to reveal any details. The greater challenge was that at that time, there were even no industrial machines in the country capable of manufacturing such special heat exchangers. Controlling leaks is also difficult. Due to the high density of supercritical carbon dioxide, in order to make it rotate, the structural dimensions of the rotating equipment need to be much smaller compared to those of turbines with the same power level; this also imposes extremely high requirements on the sealing performance of the equipment. “No one is available to consult regarding this technology as well. ”The team said that making the rotating device \"dance in the palm of the hand\" was even more difficult. Faced with challenges, the team ventured into uncharted territory – through continuous calculation, analysis, and experimentation over six to seven years, and by working together with partners, they developed a welding process and built a testing bench. As a result, they were able to break the international monopoly and invent the industrial machine essential for the engineering application of supercritical carbon dioxide energy transfer technology. They also developed and tested various multi-functional, multi-type prototypes, gaining the capability to design and develop complete systems along with key components such as microchannel heat exchangers, compressors, and turbines. “Through the Brayton cycle, thermal energy can be efficiently converted into electrical energy, offering advantages such as high efficiency, small size, and fast response. ”Huang Yanping said. Since then, technological advancements have continued to accelerate, and in 2021 the team achieved full-power operation of a recompressed megawatt-class system for the first time in the world, thereby further solidifying their technical advantages. Along with these hardware advancements, the team also developed the world’s first Modelica-based unified modeling and analysis platform for advanced nuclear systems (NUMAP), providing strong software support for technical optimization.
A market worth hundreds of billions is taking shape, with various applications facilitating green transformation. Speaking about the world’s first commercial supercritical carbon dioxide power generation unit that operates at full capacity, the team noted its clear advantages over traditional steam power generation technologies: it requires half as much space, boasts an efficiency increase of over 85%, and results in a 50% increase in net power output, which is equivalent to an additional 70 million kWh of electricity generated each year. More than 3,000 kilometers away, another demonstration project is being implemented in Xinjiang – combining molten salt heat storage with supercritical carbon dioxide to create an integrated power generation technology. “This power generation technology requires little water, which is a great advantage for areas that are relatively dry and short of water. ”The team expects to complete the demonstration application by 2028. Furthermore, this technology can be combined with various heat sources to form power generation systems, enabling electricity production from sources such as fossil fuels, nuclear energy, solar thermal energy, industrial waste heat, geothermal energy, and biomass. This allows for the creation of modular, intelligent power generation units with different power levels, ranging from kilowatts to gigawatts. Industry experts estimate that the current market size has reached hundreds of billions, with the potential to exceed trillions in the future. “Globally, this technology is still in its infancy, with fierce competition and rivals catching up rapidly. ”Huang Yanping hopes that more people will join in the future to work together to overcome common technical challenges, break through bottlenecks, and uncover additional potential for application scenarios, thereby meeting society’s needs for the green transformation of traditional industries as well as for efficient and clean energy sources.
Ionic liquids act as bridges to accelerate the proton-coupled electron transfer process in the coupling of carbon dioxide and nitrates. Let me use an analogy to help you understand this. You can imagine the electrode surface as a busy intersection, where carbon dioxide and nitrates are like two groups of pedestrians who need to meet and shake hands (form a C–N bond) in order to cross the road. But there are no traffic lights at the intersections, so people rush around randomly, often missing others or hitting them (a side effect). The ionic liquid bridge acts like an intelligent traffic coordinator: it guides pedestrians to designated locations (anchor points) while increasing the density at intersections (concentrating the reactants), thereby making it easier for the two groups of people to meet and greatly increasing the chances of a successful interaction. The brilliance of this strategy lies in the fact that it does not change the reaction itself, but rather optimizes the interface environment; it is a clever approach that achieves much with little effort. Of course, just looking at the rate isn’t enough; we also need to understand the science behind it. This study enhances the understanding of proton-coupled electron transfer processes—which are at the core of many electrochemical reactions and involve the simultaneous transfer of protons and electrons, akin to synchronized steps in dancing. Through intermolecular interactions, ionic liquids may regulate the local pH and electric field, making this complex dance of 18H⁺/16e⁻ more coordinated. The team did not specify the exact types of ionic liquids in their paper, but from a green chemistry perspective, they likely chose environmentally friendly types, after all, the journal \"Nature Sustainability\" itself reflects a focus on sustainability. Urea is not only a fertilizer but also a chemical raw material, and it is even used in certain propellants or coolants. Imagine that in the future, if military bases or space stations could use electrocatalysis to treat carbon dioxide and nitrogen-containing waste on-site, thereby producing urea for use in agriculture or chemical synthesis, it would be a significant advantage for logistical sustainability. Once the speed of this technology is increased, combined with our photovoltaic systems and nuclear fusion technologies, just imagine – it would be incredible.
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