Fuel, Vol.76, No.7, 593-601, 1997
A study of thermochemically recuperative power generation systems using natural gas
A study is made of power generation based on thermochemically recuperative (TCR) systems. The main feature of such systems is the recuperation of energy from the turbine exhaust through the reforming of a gas-steam stream. This type of cycle shows promising theoretical results for future systems which would use an inlet turbine temperature of 1700 K. The present study follows previous ones which indicated that TCR would give efficiencies superior to those of more conventional cycles (combined cycles, STIG). From that earlier work, the best two configurations were selected for more refined computations: TCR with reheating (TCRR) and TCR with reheating and intercooling (TCRRI). The TCRRI configuration leads to an efficiency almost 1% above the TCRR configuration. Routes for future studies are suggested.