Emission Characteristics of Syngas Flames

Author(s):  
Sibendu Som ◽  
Anita I. Ramirez ◽  
Suresh Aggarwal

Synthesis gas or "Syngas" is being recognized as a viable energy source worldwide, particularly for stationary power generation due to its wide flexibility in fuel sources and superior pollutants characteristics. Although its composition may vary significantly, it generally contains CO and H2 as the dominant fuel components with varying amount of methane and diluents. There are, however, gaps in the fundamental understanding of syngas combustion and emissions, as most previous research has focused on flames burning individual fuel components such as H2 and CH4, rather than syngas mixtures. To ensure the environmental feasibility of syngas, the harmful emission, especially NOx, must comply with current and future regulations. In addition, the combustion of syngas occurs at elevated pressures and inlet temperatures. Most published research has considered the combustion of syngas constituents at atmospheric conditions. This paper presents a numerical investigation to gain fundamental understanding of combustion and emission characteristics of syngas with varying composition, pressure and inlet temperatures. Two representative syngas fuel mixtures, 50% H2/50% CO and 5% H2 / 95% CO (% vol.), are chosen based on fuel composition data from multiple power generation plants worldwide. Three detailed chemical kinetic models are used namely, GRI 3.0, Davis and Dryer mechanisms. Results indicate that for both representative mixtures an increase in reactant temperature leads to a significant increase in NOx due to increase in flame temperature caused by an increase in inlet temperature. As the pressure is increased from 1 to 6 atm, the peak NO increases rapidly, and then becomes nearly independent of pressure. This can be attributed to a similar trend in radical species responsible for NO production such as HCN and OH which both show the most significant increase at low pressures. The emission index for these flames is also found to follow a similar behavior with pressure.

Author(s):  
Sibendu Som ◽  
Anita I. Rami´rez ◽  
Jonathan Hagerdorn ◽  
Alexei Saveliev ◽  
Suresh K. Aggarwal

Synthesis gas or “Syngas” is being recognized as a viable energy source worldwide, particularly for stationary power generation due to its wide flexibility in fuel sources. There are gaps in the fundamental understanding of syngas combustion and emissions characteristics, especially at elevated pressures, high strain rates and in more practical conditions. This paper presents a numerical and experimental investigation to gain fundamental understanding of combustion and emission characteristics of syngas with varying composition, pressure and strain rate. Two representative syngas fuel mixtures, 50% H2 / 50% CO and 5% H2 / 95% CO (% vol.), are chosen, three detailed chemical kinetic models are used namely, GRI 3.0, Davis et al. and Li et al. mechanisms. Davis et al. mechanism agrees best with the experimental data hence is used to simulate the partially premixed flame structures at all pressures. Results indicate that for the pressure range investigated, a typical double flame structure was observed characterized by a rich premixed reaction zone (RPZ) on the fuel side and a nonpremixed reaction zone (NPZ) at the oxidizer side nozzle with the stabilizing due to the H2 chemistry rather than the CO chemistry. Sensitivity analysis to mass burning rates for unstretched laminar flame shows that flames are more sensitive to H2 chemistry. For both representative mixtures an increase in pressure leads to a significant increase in NO due to increase in flame temperature. The emission index for these flames is also found to follow a similar behavior with pressure. Although flame temperatures were higher for flame A, total NO is lower for these flames due to increases in reburn characteristics. Thermal route dominates NO production while, prompt route is negligible. Experimental analysis on the stability of nonpremixed syngas/air flames showed that the flames were very stable for the range of strain rates investigated. At low strain rates it required 0.5% H2 to establish a stable flame.


Author(s):  
Mostafa Ahmed ◽  
Ibrahim Harbi ◽  
Ralph Kennel ◽  
Mohamed Abdelrahem

AbstractPhotovoltaic (PV) power systems are integrated with high penetration levels into the grid. This in turn encourages several modifications for grid codes to sustain grid stability and resilience. Recently, constant power management and regulation is a very common approach, which is used to limit the PV power production. Thus, this article proposes dual-mode power generation algorithm for grid-connected PV systems. The developed system considers the two-stage PV configuration for implementation, where the dual-mode power generation technique is executed within the DC–DC conversion (boost) stage. Most of the techniques adopted for dual-mode power operation employ the conventional perturb and observe method, which is known with unsatisfactory performance at fast-changing atmospheric conditions. Considering this issue, this study suggests a modified maximum power point tracker for power extraction. Furthermore, a new adaptive DC-link controller is developed to improve the DC-link voltage profile at different operating conditions. The adaptive DC-link controller is compared with the traditional PI controller for voltage regulation. The inverter control is accomplished using finite-set model predictive control with two control objectives, namely reference current tracking and switching frequency minimization. The overall control methodology is evaluated at different atmospheric and operating conditions using MATLAB/Simulink software.


2014 ◽  
Vol 694 ◽  
pp. 54-58
Author(s):  
Ling Zhe Zhang ◽  
Ya Kun Sun ◽  
Su Li ◽  
Qing Ping Zheng

A reduced chemical kinetic model (103species and 468 reactions) for new low-RON(research octane number) gasoline surrogate fuels has been proposed. Simulations explored for ignition delay time have been compared with experimental data in shock tubes at pressure of 10atm-55 atm and temperatue of 600-1400 K (fuel/air equivalence ratio=0.5,1.0,2.0 and EGR rate=0, 20%). The simulation data presented 15% enlargement compared with experiments showed applicability of the new kinetic mode in this work. A combustion simulation model has been build for HCCI(homogeneous charge compression ignition) engine with Chemkin-pro. The effects of different air inlet temperature, inlet pressure, engine speed and the fuel air equivalence ratio on the combustion characteristics of the fuel were researched. The results indicated the combustion in an HCCI engine worked sufficiently with lean mixtures and low speed. Meanwhile the material strength could be influenced when the inlet conditions changed. This helps to promote the low-RON gasoline surrogate fuel application in the HCCI engine.


2013 ◽  
Vol 781-784 ◽  
pp. 2471-2475 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. M. Masum ◽  
M.A. Kalam ◽  
H.H. Masjuki ◽  
S. M. Palash

Active research and development on using ethanol fuel in gasoline engine had been done for few decades since ethanol served as a potential of infinite fuel supply. This paper discussed analytically and provides data on the effects of compression ratio, equivalence ratio, inlet temperature, inlet pressure and ethanol blend in cylinder adiabatic flame temperature (AFT) and nitrogen oxide (NO) formation of a gasoline engine. Olikara and Borman routines were used to calculate the equilibrium products of combustion for ethanol gasoline blended fuel. The equilibrium values of each species were used to predict AFT and the NO formation of combustion chamber. The result shows that both adiabatic flame temperature and NO formation are lower for ethanol-gasoline blend than gasoline fuel.


1974 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. R. Wade ◽  
P. I. Shen ◽  
C. W. Owens ◽  
A. F. McLean

This first part, of a two part paper, reviews the NOx emission problem of the regenerative gas turbine engine for automotive application. It discusses the problem of fuel droplet burning, which causes heterogenous combustion with resulting high flame temperatures and high levels of oxides of nitrogen. The paper proposes means to achieve homogeneous combustion and shows that, even with this approach, flame temperatures need to be closely controlled to effect a compromise between NOx, CO, and HC emissions in order to meet the stringent numerical levels of emissions specified by the Federal standards for 1976 and subsequent model year automobiles. The paper shows that combustor inlet temperature of a homogeneous system has little effect, theoretically, on computed NOx emissions expressed as grams per mile, thereby strengthening the case for the regenerative turbine engine. A design concept for homogeneous combustion with controlled flame temperature is discussed.


Author(s):  
Matti Malkamäki ◽  
Ahti Jaatinen-Värri ◽  
Antti Uusitalo ◽  
Aki Grönman ◽  
Juha Honkatukia ◽  
...  

Decentralized electricity and heat production is a rising trend in small-scale industry. There is a tendency towards more distributed power generation. The decentralized power generation is also pushed forward by the policymakers. Reciprocating engines and gas turbines have an essential role in the global decentralized energy markets and improvements in their electrical efficiency have a substantial impact from the environmental and economic viewpoints. This paper introduces an intercooled and recuperated three stage, three-shaft gas turbine concept in 850 kW electric output range. The gas turbine is optimized for a realistic combination of the turbomachinery efficiencies, the turbine inlet temperature, the compressor specific speeds, the recuperation rate and the pressure ratio. The new gas turbine design is a natural development of the earlier two-spool gas turbine construction and it competes with the efficiencies achieved both with similar size reciprocating engines and large industrial gas turbines used in heat and power generation all over the world and manufactured in large production series. This paper presents a small-scale gas turbine process, which has a simulated electrical efficiency of 48% as well as thermal efficiency of 51% and can compete with reciprocating engines in terms of electrical efficiency at nominal and partial load conditions.


Author(s):  
G. Arvind Rao ◽  
Yeshayahou Levy ◽  
Ephraim J. Gutmark

Flameless combustion (FC) is one of the most promising techniques of reducing harmful emissions from combustion systems. FC is a combustion phenomenon that takes place at low O2 concentration and high inlet reactant temperature. This unique combination results in a distributed combustion regime with a lower adiabatic flame temperature. The paper focuses on investigating the chemical kinetics of an prototype combustion chamber built at the university of Cincinnati with an aim of establishing flameless regime and demonstrating the applicability of FC to gas turbine engines. A Chemical reactor model (CRM) has been built for emulating the reactions within the combustor. The entire combustion chamber has been divided into appropriate number of Perfectly Stirred Reactors (PSRs) and Plug Flow Reactors (PFRs). The interconnections between these reactors and the residence times of these reactors are based on the PIV studies of the combustor flow field. The CRM model has then been used to predict the combustor emission profile for various equivalence ratios. The results obtained from CRM model show that the emission from the combustor are quite less at low equivalence ratios and have been found to be in reasonable agreement with experimental observations. The chemical kinetic analysis gives an insight on the role of vitiated combustion gases in suppressing the formation of pollutants within the combustion process.


Author(s):  
Arnab Roy ◽  
Donald Ferguson ◽  
Todd Sidwell ◽  
Peter Strakey

Operational characteristics of an air breathing Rotating Detonation Combustor (RDC) fueled by natural gas-hydrogen blends are discussed in this paper. Experiments were performed on a 152 mm diameter uncooled RDC with a combustor to inlet area ratio of 0.2 at elevated inlet temperature and combustor pressure while varying the fuel split between natural gas and hydrogen over a range of equivalence ratios. Experimental data from short-duration (∼6sec) tests are presented with an emphasis on identifying detonability limits and exploring detonation stability with the addition of natural gas. Although the nominal combustor used in this experiment was not specifically designed for natural gas-air mixtures, significant advances in understanding conditions necessary for sustaining a stable, continuous detonation wave in a natural gas-hydrogen blended fuel were achieved. Data from the experimental study suggests that at elevated combustor pressures (2–3bar), only a small amount of natural gas added to the hydrogen is needed to alter the detonation wave operational mode. Additional observations indicate that an increase in air inlet temperature (up to 204°C) at atmospheric conditions significantly affects RDC performance by increasing deflagration losses through an increase in the number of combustion (detonation/Deflagration) regions present in the combustor. At higher backpressure levels the RDC exhibited the ability to achieve stable detonation with increasing concentrations of natural gas (with natural gas / hydrogen-air blend). However, losses tend to increase at intermediate air preheat levels (∼120°C). It was observed that combustor pressure had a first order influence on RDC stability in the presence of natural gas. Combining the results from this limited experimental study with our theoretical understanding of detonation wave fundamentals provides a pathway for developing an advanced combustor capable of replacing conventional constant pressure combustors typical of most power generation processes with one that produces a pressure gain.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (Suppl. 2) ◽  
pp. 769-776
Author(s):  
Fei Ren ◽  
Longkai Xiang ◽  
Huaqiang Chu ◽  
Weiwei Han

The reduction of nitrogen oxides in the high temperature flame is the key factor affecting the oxygen-enriched combustion performance. A numerical study using an OPPDIF code with detailed chemistry mechanism GRI 3.0 was carried out to focus on the effect of strain rate (25-130 s?1) and CO2 addition (0-0.59) on the oxidizer side on NO emission in CH4 / N2 / O2 counter-flow diffusion flame. The mole fraction profiles of flame structures, NO, NO2 and some selected radicals (H, O, OH) and the sensitivity of the dominant reactions contributing to NO formation in the counter-flow diffusion flames of CH4\/ N2 /O2 and CH4 / N2 / O2 / CO2 were obtained. The results indicated that the flame temperature and the amount of NO were reduced while the sensitivity of reactions to the prompt NO formation was gradually increased with the increasing strain rate. Furthermore, it is shown that with the increasing CO2 concentration in oxidizer, CO2 was directly involved in the reaction of NO consumption. The flame temperature and NO production were decreased dramatically and the mechanism of NO production was transformed from the thermal to prompt route.


Energetika ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Harun Yilmaz ◽  
Omer Cam ◽  
Ilker Yilmaz

Swirling flows increase combustion performance via favouring flame stability, pollutant emissions, and combustion intensity. The strength of a swirling flow is characterized by a parameter known as swirl number, which is highly related to the dh/do ratio. In this study, effects of the swirler dh/do ratio on combustion and emission characteristics of the synthetic gas flames of premixed 20%CNG/30%H2/30%CO/20%CO2 mixture were experimentally investigated in a laboratory-scale swirl stabilized combustor. For this purpose, twelve different swirl generators were designed and manufactured. dh/do ratios of these swirlers were set as 0.30 and 0.50, and the geometric swirl number was varied between the values of 0.4 and 1.4 (at 0.2 intervals). All experiments were conducted at a fuel-lean equivalence ratio (ϕ = 0.6), room temperature, and local atmospheric conditions of the city of Kayseri, Turkey. A data logger was utilized to plot axial and radial temperatures and NOx, CO, and CO2 profiles, which were exploited to assess combustion and emission performance. Results showed that the dh/do ratio had a non-monotonic effect on the behaviour of combustion and emission of the tested synthetic gas mixture. Depending on the swirl number, increments and decrements were observed in temperature and emission values.


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