Emission Characteristics of NO and NO2 in Rich-Lean Combustion of Hydrogen

Author(s):  
T. Shudo ◽  
K. Omori ◽  
O. Hiyama

Hydrogen is expected as a clean and renewable alternative to the conventional hydrocarbon fuels. Because the only possible pollutants from the hydrogen combustion are nitrogen oxides (NOx), it is crucial to reduce the NOx emission in the hydrogen utilization. The rich-lean combustion is well known as a technique to reduce the emission of the Zel’dovich NO from the continuous combustion burners for such as gas turbines and boilers. Because the Zel’dovich NO occupies a large part of the total NOx emission, the rich-lean combustion is quite effective to reduce the NOx emission. However, the NOx reduction effect of the rich-lean combustion has not yet been proven for the hydrogen fuel, while the effect has been demonstrated for the hydrocarbon fuels. On the other hand, the prompt NO is emitted from the hydrocarbon combustion especially under the fuel-rich conditions. Though the amount of the prompt NO is quite small for premixed or diffusion combustion, it could be a relatively significant part in the total NO emission from the rich-lean combustion due to the decreased Zel’dovich NO. The authors estimate that hydrogen is more suitable for the rich-lean combustion compared with hydrocarbons, because hydrogen does not emit the prompt NO even under the fuel-rich conditions which necessarily exist in the rich-lean combustion. This research proposes the rich-lean combustion as a method to reduce the NOx emission from hydrogen combustion and experimentally analyzes the characteristics using a coaxial rich-lean burner with varying the mixture conditions.

Author(s):  
Arijit Bhattacharya ◽  
Bikash Gupta ◽  
Satyajit Hansda ◽  
Zohadul Haque ◽  
Ashish Kumar ◽  
...  

Abstract Strict emission norms in the last few decades have paved the path for adaptation of new low NoX emission alternatives to power generation and aircraft propulsion. Lean combustion is a very promising and practicable technology for reducing NOX reduction and also have very high fuel efficiency. However, lean combustion technology suffers from inherent combustion instabilities that are manifested under different conditions, most importantly, thermoacoustic instability and lean blowout. Lean blowout occurs when a gas turbine combustor operating close to lean limit, for lowest NoX emission, faces abrupt changes in fuel homogeneity, quality or flow rate. While many work have been done in thermo-acoustic instability and flame propagation in annular combustors, studies in lean blowout in annular combustors are very limited. The lean limit of combustors are not fixed and is dependent on fuel characteristics and operating condition including environmental effects. So accurate online prediction of lean limit is very important to keep the combustors operating safely near lean limit. Recent works have demonstrated that single burner combustors leave out a significant amounts of physics including interaction of flames from different burners prior to blowout. In this work, a stepped down swirl and bluff body stabilized annular combustor in CB configuration (having chamber and burner), is used as experimental test rig having 4 number of identical burners. Video and heat release data are taken at different conditions as lean blowout is approached. Frequent attachment and reattachment of the flames prior to lift off was seen. As lean blowout is approached, inherent subtle differences in the different burners get amplified when flame becomes sufficiently weak and flame symmetry is broken. As air fuel mixture is made gradually leaner, one by one the flames from different burners elongates although remains partially attached to burner. Further lowering the equivalence ratio results in lift off and merging of the flame fronts of different burners. Three pixel averaged color ratios are extracted from still camera RGB images as flame stability indicators which are, red by blue, red by green and blue by green. The parameters show marked change at the point of lift off as well as at the lean blowout point.


Author(s):  
Vera Hoferichter ◽  
Denise Ahrens ◽  
Michael Kolb ◽  
Thomas Sattelmayer

Staged combustion is a promising technology for gas turbines to achieve load flexibility and low NOx emission levels at the same time. Therefore, a large scale atmospheric test rig has been set up at the Institute of Thermodynamics, Technical University of Munich to study NOx emission characteristics of a reacting jet in hot cross flow. The premixed primary combustion stage is operated at ϕ = 0.5 and provides the hot cross flow. In the second stage a premixed jet at ϕ = 0.77 is injected perpendicular to the first stage. In both stages natural gas is used as fuel and air as oxidant. This paper presents a reactor model approach for the computation of the resulting NOx concentrations. The mixing and ignition process along the jet streamline of maximum NOx formation is simulated using a perfectly stirred reactor with Cantera 1.8. The reactor model is validated for the ambient pressure case using experimental data. Afterwards, a high pressure simulation is performed in order to investigate the NOx emission characteristics under gas turbine conditions. The NOx formation is divided into flame NOx and post flame NOx. The reactor model reveals that the formation of post flame NOx in the second combustion stage can be efficiently suppressed due to fast mixing with cross flow material and the corresponding temperature reduction. Compared to single stage combustion with the same power output, no NOx reduction was observed in the experiment. However, the results from the reactor model suggest a NOx reduction potential at gas turbine conditions caused by the increased influence of post flame NOx production at high pressure.


1980 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. S. Clark

The purpose of the DOE/NASA CRT (Critical Research and Technology) Project at the Lewis Research Center is to provide an R&T data base for utility gas turbine systems burning coal-derived fuels. Coal-derived fuels present difficult problems in combustion (because of the high organically-bound nitrogen in the fuel), and materials (because of the trace metal contaminant levels in the fuels, leading to corrosion and deposition in the turbine hot section). The combustion task includes (1) an effort to model the rich-lean combustion process, to predict NOx emissions; (2) a two-stage flame tube experiment to study the effects of combustion operating conditions and fuel properties on NOx conversion; and, (3) scaled combustor tests to evaluate the NOx-reduction potential of several staged-combustion concepts. The materials-corrosion resistance effort attacks the problem on three sides.


Author(s):  
V. V. Tsatiashvili ◽  
V. G. Avgustinovich

Reduction of NOx emission of aircraft gas turbines is moving in the direction of development of direct combustor fuel injection systems providing conditions for rapid mixing and combustion of a uniform lean fuel/air mixture. However, formation of sufficient uniform fuel/air mixture in real combustors fails to be completed. It may result in burning out a considerable portion of fuel in stoichiometric conditions that in turn imposes limits on the emission level minimizing. The research accomplished by a number of authors justifies the necessity of decreasing the extent of stoichiometric zones by means of increasing fuel-air mixing rate on the stoichiometric surface of their contact, to reduce emission. This publication contains the analysis results upon the effect of mixing rate, in terms of a methane-air laminar diffusion combustion. It is proved that changes of mixing rate influence the two main factors governing the emission level: the extent of NO production zone and the efficient rate of its production. If the mixing rate increases explicitly due to the decrease of NOx production scale, the efficient velocity curve will contain a maximum value. Furthermore, the scale effect is all-over stronger than the kinetic one. It is concluded that in case of mixing rate increase, the reduction of NOx emission goes nonlinearly and steadily. The ranges of maximum effect are specified. Herewith, we introduce the relation, which demonstrates that in the diffusion combustion a sufficient reduction of NOx emission can be achieved.


Author(s):  
Takeshi Yamamoto ◽  
Kazuo Shimodaira ◽  
Yoji Kurosawa ◽  
Kazuaki Mastuura ◽  
Jun Iino ◽  
...  

Research and development of combustion technologies to reduce NOx emission of aero-engines to 20% of ICAO CAEP4 is progressing as a part of a project of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), the Technology Development for Clean Engine (TechCLEAN). To realize such low NOx level on aero-engines, it is necessary to use not conventional combustion system such as rich-lean combustion but advanced one such as premixed combustion. We are conducting research and development of staging fuel nozzles that use diffusion combustion for the pilot nozzle and premixed combustion for the main nozzle. As the first step, five fuel nozzles were tested experimentally in the form of single-sector combustor. Test conditions were selected as the LTO cycle of presumed small-class engines. From the result of tests, to combine the combustion efficiency in low engine power condition and low NOx emission in high power one, fuel nozzle models that have triple contrary swirler are suitable. However, the combustion efficiency in 7%MTO is lower than that of current engines. It is necessary to decrease the emission of CO.


Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 2173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yafei Zhang ◽  
Rui Luo ◽  
Yihua Dou ◽  
Qulan Zhou

A swirling burner with a variable inner secondary air (ISA) flaring angle β is proposed and a laboratory scale opposed-firing furnace is built. Temperature distribution and NOx emission are designedly measured. The combustion characteristics affected by variable β are experimentally evaluated from ignition and burnout data. Meanwhile, NOx reduction by the variable β is analyzed through emissions measurements. Different inner/outer primary coal-air concentration ratios γ, thermal loads and coal types are considered in this study. Results indicate that β variation provides a new approach to promote ignition and burnout, as well as NOx emission reduction under conditions of fuel rich/lean combustion and load variation. The recommended β of a swirling burner under different conditions is not always constant. The optimal βopt of the swirling burner under all conditions for different burning performance are summarized in the form of curves, which could provide reference for exquisite combustion adjustment.


Author(s):  
Andre´ Burdet ◽  
Thierry Lachaux ◽  
Marta de la Cruz Garci´a ◽  
Dieter Winkler

An EV burner as installed in Alstom’s dry low NOx gas turbines was experimentally investigated under different Flue Gas Recirculation (FGR) and engine conditions. FGR enables the reduction of the high exhaust volume flow while significantly increasing the exhaust CO2 concentration. This may substantially improve the post-combustion capture of CO2. However, FGR introduces consequent changes in the gas turbine combustion process mainly because of the oxygen depletion and CO2 increase within the oxidizer. N2 and CO2 were mixed with air in order to obtain at the burner inlet a synthetic oxidizer mixture reproducing O2 and CO2 levels spanning different FGR levels of interest for engine operation. In addition, various degrees of unmixedness of the reactive mixture were investigated by varying the ratio of fuel injected at different port locations in the investigated burner set. Stable operation was achieved in all tested conditions. The lean premix flame shifts downstream when O2 is depleted due to the decrease of the reactivity, although it always stays well within the combustion chamber. The potential for NOx reduction when using FGR is demonstrated. Changes of the NOx formation mechanism are described and compared to the experimental data for validation. Unmixedness appears to be less detrimental to NOx emission when under high FGR ratio. However, CO emission is shown to increase when FGR ratio is increased. Meanwhile, with the present gas turbine combustor, the CO emission follows the equilibrium limit even at high FGR ratio. Interestingly, it is observed that when the burner inlet pressure is increased (and consequently the inlet burner temperature), the increase of CO emission due to FGR is lowered while the NOx emission stays at a very low level. This present an argument for using a higher cycle pressure in gas turbines optimized for FGR operation.


Author(s):  
Weiqun Geng ◽  
Douglas Pennell ◽  
Stefano Bernero ◽  
Peter Flohr

Jets in cross flow are one of the fundamental issues for mixing studies. As a first step in this paper, a generic geometry of a jet in cross flow was simulated to validate the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) tool. Instead of resolving the whole injection system, the effective cross-sectional area of the injection hole was modeled as an inlet surface directly. This significantly improved the agreement between the CFD and experimental results. In a second step, the calculated mixing in an ALSTOM EV burner is shown for varying injection hole patterns and momentum flux ratios of the jet. Evaluation of the mixing quality was facilitated by defining unmixedness as a global non-dimensional parameter. A comparison of ten cases was made at the burner exit and on the flame front. Measures increasing jet penetration improved the mixing. In the water tunnel the fuel mass fraction within the burner and in the combustor was measured across five axial planes using LIF (Laser Induced Fluorescence). The promising hole patterns chosen from the CFD computations also showed a better mixing in the water tunnel than the other. Distribution of fuel mass fraction and unmixedness were compared between the CFD and LIF results. A good agreement was achieved. In a final step the best configuration in terms of mixing was checked with combustion. In an atmospheric test rig measured NOx emissions confirmed the CFD prediction as well. The most promising case has about 40% less NOx emission than the base case.


Author(s):  
Toshiaki Sakurazawa ◽  
Takeo Oda ◽  
Satoshi Takami ◽  
Atsushi Okuto ◽  
Yasuhiro Kinoshita

This paper describes the development of the Dry Low Emission (DLE) combustor for L30A gas turbine. Kawasaki Heavy Industries, LTD (KHI) has been producing relatively small-size gas turbines (25kW to 30MW class). L30A gas turbine, which has a rated output of 30MW, achieved the thermal efficiency of more than 40%. Most continuous operation models use DLE combustion systems to reduce the harmful emissions and to meet the emission regulation or self-imposed restrictions. KHI’s DLE combustors consist of three burners, a diffusion pilot burner, a lean premix main burner, and supplemental burners. KHI’s proven DLE technologies are also adapted to the L30A combustor design. The development of L30 combustor is divided in four main steps. In the first step, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses were carried out to optimize the detail configuration of the combustor. In a second step, an experimental evaluation using single-can-combustor was conducted in-house intermediate-pressure test facility to evaluate the performances such as ignition, emissions, liner wall temperature, exhaust temperature distribution, and satisfactory results were obtained. In the third step, actual pressure and temperature rig tests were carried out at the Institute for Power Plant Technology, Steam and Gas Turbines (IKDG) of Aachen University, achieving NOx emission value of less than 15ppm (O2=15%). Finally, the L30A commercial validation engine was tested in an in-house test facility, NOx emission is achieved less than 15ppm (O2=15%) between 50% and 100% load operation point. L30A field validation engine have been operated from September 2012 at a chemical industries in Japan.


Author(s):  
Lars O. Nord ◽  
David R. Schoemaker ◽  
Helmer G. Andersen

A study was initiated to investigate the possibility of significantly reducing the NOx emissions at a power plant utilizing, among other manufacturers, ALSTOM GT11 type gas turbines. This study is limited to one of the GT11 type gas turbines on the site. After the initial study phase, the project moved on to a mechanical implementation stage, followed by thorough testing and tuning. The NOx emissions were to be reduced at all ambient conditions, but particularly at cold conditions (below 0°C) where a NOx reduction of more than 70% was the goal. The geographical location of the power plant means cold ambient conditions for a large part of the year. The mechanical modifications included the addition of Helmholtz damper capacity with an approximately 30% increase in volume for passive thermo-acoustic instability control, significant piping changes to the fuel distribution system in order to change the burner configuration, and installation of manual valves for throttling of the fuel gas to individual burners. Subsequent to the mechanical modifications, significant time was spent on testing and tuning of the unit to achieve the wanted NOx emissions throughout a major part of the load range. The tuning was, in addition to the main focus of the NOx reduction, also focused on exhaust temperature spread, combustion stability, CO emissions, as well as other parameters. The measurement data was acquired through a combination of existing unit instrumentation and specific instrumentation added to aid in the tuning effort. The existing instrumentation readings were polled from the control system. The majority of the added instrumentation was acquired via the FieldPoint system from National Instruments. The ALSTOM AMODIS plant-monitoring system was used for acquisition and analysis of all the data from the various sources. The project was, in the end, a success with low NOx emissions at part load and full load. As a final stage of the project, the CO emissions were also optimized resulting in a nice compromise between the important parameters monitored, namely NOx emissions, CO emissions, combustion stability, and exhaust temperature distribution.


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