A review of research and development of supercritical carbon dioxide Brayton cycle technology in nuclear engineering applications

Supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) Brayton cycle has many advantages including high power conversion efficiency at mediate temperature, compact configuration, high system simplicity and low efficiency loss using dry cooling, which make it well suited to nuclear reactor applications. S-CO2 power cycle can be used as power conversion system for almost all the nuclear power systems including small modular reactor (SMR), Generation IV reactor and fusion reactor. It can also be used as a self-propellant and self-sustaining decay heat removal system to enhance the safety of existing commercial nuclear power plant. An update of research activities is needed to identify the unique research interests and challenges of S-CO2 power cycle based nuclear applications. This paper is a review of the research activities which have been carried out for S-CO2 power cycle based nuclear applications worldwide. The characteristics of S-CO2 power cycle are presented first to explain the distinctive features of this power cycle. Then the progresses in the experimental study of integrated S-CO2 Brayton cycle test loops are reviewed comprehensively to shed a light on its technical maturity in laboratory. Moreover, a review of various research areas concerning S-CO2 power cycle working as power conversion system or heat removal system for nuclear applications are carried out. Based on these review works, the challenges and perspectives are discussed and highlighted in the paper. Conclusions can be achieved that S-CO2 Brayton cycle is a promising option to broaden nuclear energy’s application scope.