MILD combustion of hydrogenated biogas under several operating conditions in an opposed jet configuration

Abstract

MILD combustion of biogas takes its importance firstly from the combustion process that diminishes significantly fuel consumption and reduces emissions and secondly from the use of biogas which is a renewable fuel. In this paper, the influence of several operating conditions (namely biogas composition, hydrogen enrichment and oxidizer dilution) is studied on flame structure and emissions. The investigation is conducted in MILD regime with a special focus on chemical effects of CO2 in the oxidizer. Opposed jet diffusion combustion configuration is adopted. The combustion kinetics is described by the Gri 3.0 mechanism and the Chemkin code is used to solve the problem.It is found that oxygen reduction has a significant effect on flame temperature and emissions while less sensitivity corresponds to hydrogen enrichment in MILD combustion regime. Temperature and species are considerably reduced by oxygen decrease in the oxidizer and augmented by hydrogen addition to the fuel. The maximum values of temperature and species are not influenced by the composition of the biogas in MILD regime. Blending biogas with hydrogen can be used to sustain MILD combustion at very low oxygen concentration in the fuel.In MILD combustion regime, the chemical effect of CO2 in the oxidizer stream reduces considerably the flame temperature and species production, except CO which is enhanced. For high amounts of CO2 in the oxidizer, the chemical effect of CO2 becomes negligible.