Abstract
Direct-fired supercritical CO2 (sCO2) cycles are expected to result in sCO2 with higher impurity levels compared to indirect-fired cycles. Prior work at ambient pressure showed minimal effects of O2 and H2O additions, however, a new experimental rig has been built to have flowing controlled impurity levels at supercritical pressures at ≤800°C. Based on industry input, the first experiment was conducted at 750°C/300 bar in CO2+1%O2-0.25%H2O using 500-h cycles for up to 5,000 h. Compared to research grade sCO2, the results indicate faster reaction rates for Fe-based alloys like 310HN and smaller increases for Ni-based alloys like alloys 617B and 282. It is difficult to quantify the 310HN rate increase because of scale spallation. Characterization of the 5,000 h specimens indicated a thicker reaction product formed, which has not been observed in previous impurity studies at ambient pressure. These results suggest that more studies of impurity effects are needed at supercritical pressures including steels at lower temperatures.
