Energy
systems

Dehumidification in steam turbine

Steam turbine is one of the most important equipment in terms of energy conversion as 90% of electricity is generated from the steam turbine. At the low-pressure stage of steam turbine, however, the non-equilibrium condensation of wet steam will inevitably occur, which generates a great amount of microscale droplets in the mainstream flow. The continuous droplet impacting on the moving blades of steam turbine not only induces the corrosion of the blade surface, but also significantly decreases the energy efficiency of the whole system. Therefore, an efficient dehumidification technology is crucial to improve the overall energy performance of steam turbine and to reduce the CO2 emission.

In AECR lab, we aim to develop a novel dehumidification hollow stationary blade with (1) diamond-like internal supporting architecture, or (2) nanoengineered superhydrophilic outer surface. Specifically, the diamond-like inner architecture can effectively increase the strength of the hollow blade, while enhancing the heat transfer from the inner hot steam flow to the blade surface. We experimentally demonstrated that this method could reduce 80% of condensate film on the blade surface by passing 3% of the hot steam from the previous stage through the hollow