Near-Isothermal Hydraulically Actuated Compressor for CO2 compression
The core of this project has been to test the concept of hydraulically actuated near-isothermal compression and prepare its application to CO2 and hydrogen compression. The fundamental idea is that during compression of a gas, its temperature increases, in return increasing the pressure and the work needed to achieve compression. In theory maintaining the gas at its original temperature during compression - isothermal compression - saves a great amount of energy, the larger the pressure ratio the larger the savings. Many attempts have been made to achieve isothermal or near-isothermal compression, but the geometry of most compressors does not allow for enough surface of heat exchange to cool the gas quickly enough as it is compressed. Intricate technologies do achieve the process by injecting oil or water into the compressor cavity, later on causing contamination issues, or at minimum the need to separate the phases. We have designed, built and tested prototypes at the 1 horsepower scale delivering 90 psig oil-free compressed air with a maximum flow of 52 slpm. Prototypes have supported multiple modifications to improve their performance along the project. Most of the performance improvements have been achieved improving the volumetric efficiency of the compressor, by reducing its compliance, and reducing the flow restriction of the pneumatic components, without sacrificing heat exchange. We achieved isothermal efficiencies of 41-42%, 15-16% larger than commercial oil-free compressors of similar power and flow, while achieving near-isothermal compression. These efficiencies are close to the one of State of the Art oil-free industrial air compressors in the 20 to 100 horsepower range, showing a promising future for the technology. The other part of the project has been to develop numerical simulations of the process to estimate gas temperature and theoretical work. Both predictions are in good agreement with the measurements and allows one to predict the performance of the process as a function of the heat exchange capacity. On top of industrial air compression, the technology also has other industrial potential applications such as high pressure air for blow molding. Further down the development path, other applications requiring an increase in efficiency from State of the Art show a large potential for development, such as CO2 and Hydrogen compression.
- Research Organization:
- Other Lab Inc
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0021614
- OSTI ID:
- 1864589
- Type / Phase:
- SBIR (Phase I)
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-OTHERLAB-0021614-1
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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