Numerical investigation of fuel flexibility in a small-scale flameless combustor

Abstract

Numerical simulation of a laboratory flameless combustor was performed to investigate the flexibility to burn alternative fuels to natural gas. The studied fuels are biogas, syngas and a mixture of ammonia and methane. The inlet temperatures of air and fuel, the equivalence ratio and the geometrical characteristics of the combustor were maintained constant. The results show that flameless combustion is observed in the biogas and in the NH3/CH4 mixture, while the syngas burns according to the conventional non-premixed combustion mode. According to the predictions, the biogas emits 1.1 ppm of NOx and 229 ppm of CO, syngas produces 7.8 ppm of NOx and 35 ppm of CO and the NH3/CH4 mixture emits about 3900 ppm of NOx and 608 ppm of CO. The high NOx and CO emissions in the NH3/CH4 mixture show that the combustor needs to be optimized to burn a nitrogen-containing fuel.