Stability limits and NO emissions of premixed swirl ammonia-air flames enriched with hydrogen or methane at elevated pressures
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Accepted manuscript
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2022-01-01
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ArticleAuthors
Khateeb, Abdulrahman A.
Guiberti, Thibault
Wang, Guoqing

Boyette, Wesley

Younes, Mourad

Jamal, Aqil
Roberts, William L.

KAUST Department
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), CCRC, Thuwal, 23955-6900, Saudi ArabiaClean Combustion Research Center
Mechanical Engineering Program
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
KAUST Grant Number
BAS/1/1370-01-01Date
2021-01Embargo End Date
2022-01-01Submitted Date
2020-11-10Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/667440
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This study reports measurements of stability limits and exhaust NO mole fractions of technically-premixed swirl ammonia-air flames enriched with either methane or hydrogen. Experiments were conducted at different pressures from atmospheric to 5 bar, representative of commercial micro gas turbines. The full range of ammonia fractions in the fuel blend, xNH3, was considered, from 0 (pure methane or hydrogen) to 1 (pure ammonia), covering very lean (φ = 0.25) to rich (φ = 1.60) equivalence ratios. Results show that increasing pressure widens the range of stable equivalence ratios for pure ammonia-air flames. Regardless of pressure, there is a critical ammonia fraction above which the range of stable equivalence ratios suddenly widens. This is because flashback does not occur anymore when the equivalence ratio is progressively increased towards stoichiometric and rich blowout occurs instead. This critical ammonia fraction increases with pressure and is larger for ammonia-hydrogen than for ammonia-methane. Provided that enough hydrogen is blended with ammonia (xNH3 < 0.9), flames with very lean equivalence ratios (φ < 0.7) can be stabilized and these yield competitively low NO emissions (<200 ppm), regardless of pressure. For this reason, very lean swirl ammonia-hydrogen-air flames are promising candidates for micro gas turbines. However, N2O emissions have the potential to be unacceptably large for these operating conditions if heat loss is too large or residence time is too short. As a consequence, the post flame region must be considered carefully. Due to the lower reactivity of methane compared to that of hydrogen, very lean swirl ammonia-methane-air flames could not be stabilized and good NO performance is limited to rich equivalence ratios for ammonia-methane fuel blends. The equivalence ratio above which good NO performance depends on pressure and bulk velocity.Citation
Khateeb, A. A., Guiberti, T. F., Wang, G., Boyette, W. R., Younes, M., Jamal, A., & Roberts, W. L. (2021). Stability limits and NO emissions of premixed swirl ammonia-air flames enriched with hydrogen or methane at elevated pressures. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. doi:10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.01.036Sponsors
Thanks to Saudi Aramco research and development center for funding this project under research agreement number RGC/3/3837-01-01 and to the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) under grant number BAS/1/1370-01-01.Publisher
Elsevier BVAdditional Links
https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S036031992100094Xae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.ijhydene.2021.01.036