Experimental study of fuel‐lean reburn system for NOX reduction and CO emission in oxygen‐enhanced combustion

A fuel‐lean reburn system is found here to be able to replace a conventional reburning technique in terms of increasing efficiency. In the fuel‐lean reburn system, the amount of injected reburn fuel into the reburning zone is low enough to maintain the overall fuel‐lean condition in the furnace, so that no additional air system is required, and CO emission can be maintained at almost zero level. In this study, an experimental study has been done to examine the reduction characteristics of NO_X in a lab scale combustor (15 kW) with various oxygen‐enhanced combustion conditions. Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) was used as a main fuel and reburn fuel. Finally, the current fuel‐lean reburn system, even with only an amount of reburn fuel of 13% of total heat input, was observed to achieve a maximum of 48% in NO_X reduction. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical study of further NOx emission reduction for coal MILD combustion by combining fuel‐rich/lean technology

This paper numerically examines the feasibility of further reducing NO_x emission from a semi‐industrial scale coal MILD (moderate and intense low‐oxygen dilution) combustion furnace by adopting fuel‐rich/lean technology. The implementation is achieved by separating the original fuel jet into two parallel jets which will be used as rich and lean streams. An effort has been made to develop a 13‐step reaction mechanism and NO_x evolution UDFs (user defined functions) for better understanding the interactions between MILD combustion and fuel‐rich/lean technology. The experiment of the reference case (Combustion and Flame 156.9 (2009): 1771‐1784) is well reproduced by the present numerical simulation, indicating high reliability of developed models. The validity of the further reduction of NO_x emission is assessed by the comparison among inner‐fuel‐rich (IFR), outer‐fuel‐rich (OFR), and reference cases resulting from the adjustment of the fuel supply through the two fuel‐rich/lean jets. The results show that both IFR and OFR configurations succeed in achieving further reduction of NO_x emission as compared with the reference case, which stems from both thermal and fuel paths. Specifically, the decrease of thermal‐NO emission originates from the contraction of high‐temperature regions (>1800 K), where nearly 94% reduction occurs within the temperature range of 1800 K and 1950 K while only 6% within 1950 K and 2030 K despite their high temperature sensitivity. The reduction of the fuel‐NO emission is mainly attributed to the promoted NO reduction on char surface and neutralization with HCN and NH₃. Generally, the NO_x emission can be minimized by enlarging the equivalence ratio difference between rich and lean jets, and the OFR configuration exhibits a higher potential than the IFR counterparts. However, since a relatively high temperature (1623 K) secondary air was used in the experiment, the maximum NO_x reduction potential was limited to only 2.5%.     

Fundamental study of heterogeneous KCl sulfation under oxy‐fuel combustion conditions

Under oxy‐fuel combustion condition, SO₂ in the flue gas would be accumulated by recirculation, which is conducive to the heterogeneous sulfation reaction of alkali metals. In the present study, experiments were conducted in a fixed bed to investigate the effects of operating parameters and mineral additives (SiO₂, CaO, and Fe₂O₃) on the heterogeneous sulfation of potassium chloride under oxy‐fuel combustion atmosphere. According to the results here, the heterogeneous sulfation reaction was a kinetically controlled process, with the activation energy of 93.6 kJ/mol. The reaction orders with respect to SO₂, O₂, and H₂O were determined as 1, 0.6 and 0 (H₂O involved in the reaction). While the reaction would be promoted obviously in the absence of H₂O. The rate law of heterogeneous sulfation of potassium chloride was derived based on the experimental data. Compared with air combustion, the heterogeneous sulfation rate was lower under oxy‐fuel combustion. All the mineral additives employed would affect the sulfation reaction. The sulfation reaction can be catalyzed by Fe₂O₃. While CaO would suppress the reaction by competing for SO₂ with KCl. The reaction between CaO and SO₂ could also be catalyzed by Fe₂O₃. Besides, SO₂ was more reactive towards CaO than KCl.     

Numerical study on steam‐added mild combustion

Numerical study on flame structure and NO emission is conducted covering a wide range of atmospheric temperature, high temperature, and mild combustion regimes in H₂‐Air laminar flames diluted with steam. Special concern is focused on the difference of flame structure and NO emission behaviour between high‐temperature combustion and mild combustion modes. The important role of chemical effects of added steam in flame structure and NO emission behaviour is also discussed. It is seen that there exists an oxidizer‐side temperature limit which the combustion mode changes from high temperature combustion to mild combustion. In high temperature combustion modes the OH production via the reaction step, (‐R23) is suppressed while in mild combustion modes is enhanced by the increase of oxidizer‐side temperature. It is also found that chemical effects of added steam are influenced by the competition between both the reaction steps, (R21) and (‐R23). NO emission index increases with increasing oxidizer‐side temperature and decreases with mole fraction of added steam. The remarkably produced OH due to chemical effects of added steam does not contribute to the increase of NO but plays a role of holdback on NO in thermal mechanism. It is also seen that in both the high temperature combustion and mild combustion modes NO emission indicates a consistently similar tendency, and is consequently recognized that in the whole ranges steam addition suppresses NO emission. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Power flattening study of ultra‐long cycle fast reactor using thorium fuel

This paper presents a design study of power shape flattening for an optimized ultra‐long cycle fast reactor with a power rate of 1000 MWe in order to mitigate the power peaking issue and improve the safety with a lower maximum neutron flux and reactivity swing. There are variations in the core designs by loading thorium fuel or zoning fuels in the blanket region and the bottom driver region of ultra‐long cycle fast reactor with a power rate of 1000 MWe. While it has lower breeding performance in a fast breeder reactor, thorium fuel is one of the promising fuel options for future reactors because of its abundance and its safety characteristics. It has been confirmed that the thorium fuels, when loaded into the center region of a reactor core, lower the power peaking factor from 1.64 to 1.25 after 20 years and achieves a more flattened radial power distribution. This consequently reduces the maximum neutron flux and the speed of the active core moving from 3.0 cm/year to 2.5 cm/year on the average over the 60‐year reactor operation. It has been successfully demonstrated that the three‐zone core is the most optimized core, has the most flattened radial power shape, and is without any compromise in the nature of long cycle core, from the neutronics point of view, in terms of average discharge burnup and breeding ratio. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hydrogen as burner fuel: modelling of hydrogen–hydrocarbon composite fuel combustion and NOx formation in a small burner

The objective of this work is to investigate numerically the turbulent non‐premixed hydrogen (H₂) and hydrogen–hydrocarbon flames in a small burner. Numerical studies using Fluent code were carried out for air‐staged and non‐staged cases. The effects of fuel composition from pure hydrogen to natural gas (100%H₂, 70%H₂+30%CH₄, 10%H₂+90%CH₄, and 100%CH₄) were also investigated. The predictions are validated and compared against the experimental results previously obtained and results from the literature. Turbulent diffusion flames are investigated numerically using a finite volume method for the solution of the conservation equations and reaction equations governing the problem. Although, three different turbulence models were tested, the standard k–ε model was used for the modelling of the turbulence phenomena in the burner. The temperature and major pollutant concentrations (CO and NO_x) distributions are in good agreement with the existing experimental results. Air staging causes rich and lean combustion regions thus lower NO_x emissions through the combustor exit. Blending hydrogen with methane causes considerable reduction in temperature levels and thus NO emissions. Increasing the mixture ratio from stoichiometric to leaner mixtures also decreases the temperature and thus NO emissions. Hydrogen may be considered a good alternative fuel for burners, as its use reduces the emission of pollutants, and as it is a renewable synthetic fuel. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Numerical simulation of the combustion processes in a W‐shaped boiler furnace under different operating conditions

Numerical simulations of gas–solid flows, heat transfer and gas–particle turbulent combustion have been conducted for a three‐dimensional, W‐shaped boiler furnace. The gas–particle flow, distributions of temperature and concentrations of gaseous constituents, distributions of the rates of heat release, burnout rates of coal particles, and formations of volatiles have been predicted. The results indicate that a steady high‐temperature zone is formed under the arch of the W‐shaped flame boiler, this zone would be of benefit to the ignition and carbon burn‐out and suggest that the W‐shaped flame boiler is suitable for burning low‐quality coals and can operate well under different operating conditions for full and partial loads. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Research on the hot surface ignition of hydrogen‐air mixture under different influencing factors

To further reveal the pre‐ignition characteristics of hydrogen internal combustion engine, the effect of hot surface characteristic parameters on the ignition characteristics of hydrogen‐air mixture was investigated in this research. Based on the prototype of the constant volume combustion bomb with an overhead glow plug, the duration from the heating of the hot surface to the combustion of hydrogen‐air mixture, the so‐called heating duration, was firstly researched under different fuel‐air equivalence ratio, initial temperature, initial pressure, hot surface temperature, and hot surface area, and the influence of each factor on the heating duration was analyzed. The results show that the order of the effect of each factor on the hot surface ignition is as follows: hot surface temperature > initial pressure of hydrogen‐air mixture > equivalent ratio > initial temperature of hydrogen‐air mixture > hot surface area. The influence of the hot surface characteristic parameters on the heating duration was further analyzed in detail. On this basis, the relationship among the critical ignition temperature, the heating duration and the hot surface area was researched and established. The results show that the heating duration is the only major factor affecting the critical ignition temperature. Finally, the research results were applied to analysis the pre‐ignition in hydrogen internal combustion engine.     

Characteristic evaluation of a CO2‐capturing repowering system based on oxy‐fuel combustion and exergetic flow analyses for improving efficiency

A CO₂‐capturing H₂O turbine power generation system based on oxy‐fuel combustion method is proposed to decrease CO₂ emission from an existing thermal power generation system (TPGS) by utilizing steam produced in the TPGS. A high efficient combined cycle power generation system (CCPS) with reheat cycle is adopted as an example of existing TPGSs into which the proposed system is retrofitted. First, power generation characteristics of the proposed CO₂‐capturing system, which requires no modification of the CCPS itself, are estimated. It is shown through simulation study that the proposed system can reduce 26.8% of CO₂ emission with an efficiency decrease by 1.20% and an increase power output by 23.2%, compared with the original CCPS. Second, in order to improve power generation characteristics and CO₂ reduction effect of the proposed system, modifications of the proposed system are investigated based on exergetic flow analyses, and revised systems are proposed based on the obtained results. Finally, it is shown that a revised proposed system, which has the same turbine inlet temperature as the CCPS, can increase power output by 33.6%, and reduce 32.5% of CO₂ emission with exergetic efficiency decrease by 1.58%, compared with the original CCPS. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parametric study of chemical looping combustion for tri‐generation of hydrogen,heat, and electrical power with CO2 capture

In this article, a novel cycle configuration has been studied, termed the extended chemical looping combustion integrated in a steam‐injected gas turbine cycle. The products of this system are hydrogen, heat, and electrical power. Furthermore, the system inherently separates the CO₂ and hydrogen that is produced during the combustion. The core process is an extended chemical looping combustion (exCLC) process which is based on classical chemical looping combustion (CLC). In classical CLC, a solid oxygen carrier circulates between two fluidized bed reactors and transports oxygen from the combustion air to the fuel; thus, the fuel is not mixed with air and an inherent CO₂ separation occurs. In exCLC the oxygen carrier circulates along with a carbon carrier between three fluidized bed reactors, one to oxidize the oxygen carrier, one to produces and separate the hydrogen, and one to regenerate the carbon carrier. The impacts of process parameters, such as flowrates and temperatures have been studied on the efficiencies of producing electrical power, hydrogen, and district heating and on the degree of capturing CO₂. The result shows that this process has the potential to achieve a thermal efficiency of 54% while 96% of the CO₂ is captured and compressed to 110 bar. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental study on combustion of torrefied palm kernel shell (PKS) in oxy‐fuel environment

Oxy‐combustion of biomass can be a major candidate to achieve negative emission of CO₂ from a pulverized fuel (pf)‐firing power generation plants. Understanding combustion behavior of biomass fuels in oxy‐firing conditions is a key for design of oxy‐combustion retrofit of pulverized fuel power plant. This study aims to investigate a lab‐scale combustion behavior of torrefied palm kernel shell (PKS) in oxy‐combustion environments in comparison with the reference bituminous coal. A 20 kW_th‐scale, down‐firing furnace was used to conduct the experiments using both air (conventional) and O₂/CO₂ (30 vol% for O₂) as an oxidant. A bituminous coal (Sebuku coal) was also combusted in both air‐ and oxy‐firing condition with the same conditions of oxidizers and thermal heat inputs. Distributions of gas temperature, unburned carbon, and NO_x concentration were measured through sampling of gases and particles along axial directions. Moreover, the concentrations of SO_x and HCl were measured at the exit of the furnace. Experimental results showed that burnout rate was enhanced during oxy‐fuel combustion. The unburnt carbon in the flue gas was reduced considerably (~75%) during combustion of torrefied PKS in oxy‐fuel environment as compared with air‐firing condition. In addition, NO emission was reduced by 16.5% during combustion of PKS in oxy‐fuel environment as compared with air‐firing condition.