The promise of the Kalina cycle: Using an ammonia-water mixture, the Kalina steam cycle may permit thermal-mechanical-electrical energy conversion efficiencies of 45 percent

New technologies come and go, but the Rankine steam cycle goes on forever - or so it seemed until Alexander I. Kalina found a better way. Power engineers have known for years that heat can be generated more efficiently in a boiler if a mixture like ammonia and water is used as the working fluid, but no one had figured out how to condense the working fluid mixture at normal heat rejection temperatures. Kalina, a former top Soviet energy official who emigrated to the United States and now lives in Houston, I Texas, solved the problem, at least in theory. Now it must be determined whether his theory holds up in practice.