Intense Low-oxygen Dilution Combustion Research Articles

Numerical analysis of the enrichment of CH4/H2 in ammonia combustion in a hot co-flow environment

A numerical investigation is conducted using OpenFOAM to study the characteristics of ammonia flames enriched with methane and hydrogen, influenced by a diluted co-flow (exhaust gas). The study aims to explore various flame characteristics, including fuel consumption, ignition delay time, lift-off height and position, temperature, and CO and NO emissions while maintaining a constant energy input of 5 kW. Non-stabilized flames are identified by analyzing the OH peak in the computational domain among ammonia flames enriched with CH4/H2 for different dilutions of O2 (6 %, 9 %, and 12 %). The study is structured into three stages of numerical simulations corresponding to stabilized flames: (1) no reaction, (2) reaction in the absence of O2, and (3) reaction with O2 to see the sole impact of the hot co-flow and local turbulence mixing on the primary cracking of ammonia. Furthermore, the rates of H2 and N2 formation resulting from the utilization of ammonia in the presence of hot co-flow are thoroughly examined. Additionally, the behavior of ammonia flames and CH4/H2-enriched ammonia flames under preheated air conditions (23 % O2) is analysed. Stable flames are observed in the co-flow at 12 % O2, displaying characteristics of Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion. Conversely, ammonia flames under preheated air conditions exhibit conventional flame behavior. Pure ammonia flames exhibit stronger temperature gradients and higher levels of CO and NO emissions. As the enrichment of NH3 with CH4/H2 increases, peak temperatures decrease while lift-off heights increase, indicating a transition towards more distributed flame structures. Notably, the instance with 40 % H2 enrichment exhibits lower NO emissions and a higher rate of ammonia consumption along with more distributive flame characteristics.

Assessment of MILD combustion in co/counter-swirl configuration using syngas as a fuel

Moderate or intense low oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion is investigated in a co/counter-swirl using OH∗-chemiluminescence, species measurements, OH planar laser-induced fluorescence (OH-PLIF), two-dimensional particle image velocimetry (2D-PIV), and microphone measurements. Experiments are performed in a two-stage combustor, where the first stage of combustor is catalytic stage and the second stage is the swirl stage (co/counter-swirl configuration). A fuel-rich syngas (20 % H2, 20 % CO, 12 % CO2, 2 % CH4, and 46 % N2) reacts with air in the catalytic stage. Then, the mixture of unconsumed syngas and products of catalytic combustion is supplied to the swirl stage where the mixture is burnt with oxidizer with varied oxygen concentration. The flame in the swirl stage is established by two concentric swirling streams where the inner stream is the hot gases from the catalytic stage, and the outer stream is the oxidizer. Co/counter-swirl flames are generated by changing the swirl direction of the inner stream. After achieving a stable flame, the macrostructure, flame steadiness, CO and NOx emissions, reaction zone distribution, and sound pressure level (SPL) are investigated at several oxygen concentrations (O2 = 13.13 %–21 %) with an aim to assess the MILD combustion mode in co/counter-swirl configuration.As the oxygen percentage decreases, the flame luminosity decreases for both co/counter-configuration. However, the reduction in luminosity is profound for co-swirl configuration. Clear distinctions between co and counter-swirl configurations are observed regarding flame height and stand-off height. Two-dimensional particle image velocimetry (2D-PIV) is utilized to understand these trends. The steadiness of the flame is investigated using standard deviations (SD) of OH∗-chemiluminescence images and global luminosity (I(t)). The flame steadiness is found to be improved as the oxygen concentration decreases. The OH-PLIF indicates the distributed nature of combustion. The NOx emission is found to be extremely low in all studied cases; however, the CO emission shows an increasing trend when O2 reduces. Finally, the sound pressure level and the dynamics stability are investigated using microphone measurements. The SPL decreases by ∼3 dB and ∼7 dB for the counter-swirl and co-swirl configuration, respectively. Furthermore, the frequency domain analysis suggests that the fundamental axial mode of the combustor is excited at high oxygen concentration. However, the unsteady combustion and chamber acoustics become decoupled at lower O2 concentrations. Thus, the present paper, for the first time, confirms that MILD combustion can be achieved in co/counter-swirl configuration, provided the oxygen concentration is low (∼13 %). The present study also establishes that the co-swirl configuration is more suitable than the counter-swirl for achieving the MILD combustion mode.

Sustainability of hydrogen-enriched methane MILD combustion over a wide range of hydrogen-blending ratios in a strongly heat-extracted well-stirred reactor

Moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion of methane blended with hydrogen offers a potential solution for gas-fired industrial furnaces and even boilers to realize rapid decarbonization while maintaining ultra-low NO emissions. In this work, the combustion mode map for identifying MILD combustion when burning CH4/H2 mixtures from pure methane to pure hydrogen is proposed, and then the sustainability of hydrogen-enriched methane MILD combustion over a wide range of hydrogen-blending ratios from 0 to 100% under strongly heat-extracted conditions is revealed. Results show that, there exists a threshold oxygen mole fraction (XO2*) below which hydrogen-enriched methane MILD combustion can be achieved as long as the inlet temperature (Tin) is above the self-ignition temperature of reactants. As the hydrogen-blending ratio increases from 0 to 100%, XO2* is reduced from 9.3 to 6.5% and thus the unconditional MILD combustion region is concentrated, implying that hydrogen addition requires a larger oxygen dilution level to sustain MILD combustion. Interestingly, the sustainable operating range of oxygen concentration to sustain hydrogen-enriched methane MILD combustion can be extended by increasing the heat extraction ratio (HER) properly, e.g., XO2* up to 13.2% at HER = 30% for pure hydrogen fuel. However, methane MILD combustion would become unstable and even extinguished once HER exceeds about 49%, whereas MILD combustion of methane blended with a high percentage of hydrogen could be sustained even under highly heat-extracted conditions, e.g., a maximum allowable HER of about 91% for pure hydrogen fuel. In pure hydrogen MILD combustion, heat extraction can further reduce NO emissions, mainly due to less NO production via the N2O-intermediate, NNH, and thermal pathways, and NO reduction by H radicals tends to be weakened with heat extraction. In conclusion, high-percentage hydrogen co-firing makes it possible to achieve stable MILD operation with low NO emissions under strongly heat-extracted conditions encountered in boilers.

Numerical study on the ignition and combustion of a CH4 jet flame in diluted and undiluted coflows

This study numerically investigates the ignition and evolution of CH4 jet flames in a hot coflow (JHC) using large eddy simulation (LES). Three coflow oxygen fractions are carefully selected to compare moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD, YO2,C = 6 % and 9 %) and high temperature combustion (HTC, YO2,C = 23.3 %). Systematic investigations are performed on flame ignition, lift-off, reaction progress, and stabilization mechanisms. The results show that for the MILD cases, both the ignition process and final stable flame are controlled by turbulent mixing and chemistry in a state far from chemical equilibrium. In contrast, the reactions are much stronger for HTC, and the final flame is controlled by chemistry through equilibrium reactions. Moreover, for all three cases, the reactions always progress more rapidly at the lean side than at the rich side; thus, autoignition dominates the former, whereas flame propagation is more important for the latter. In addition, the premixing of fuel and oxidant prior to main reactions is crucial for realizing MILD combustion; therefore, the flame is lifted and stabilized by the autoignition of partially premixed reactants in the fuel-lean region. In contrast, the final HTC flame attaches to the burner exit and is stabilized by both the lean-side autoignition and rich-side flame propagation. For all three cases, the lean-side and stoichiometric flames adopt the nonpremixed mode, whereas the rich-side reactions are in the premixed mode, except for the flame base.

The reactor-based perspective on finite-rate chemistry in turbulent reacting flows: A review from traditional to low-emission combustion

In flames, turbulence can either limit or enhance combustion efficiency by means of strain and mixing. The interactions between turbulent motions and chemistry are crucial to the behaviour of combustion processes. In particular, it is essential to correctly capture non-equilibrium phenomena such as localised ignition and extinction to faithfully predict pollutant formation. Reactor-based combustion models — such as the Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC) or Partially Stirred Reactor (PaSR) — may account for turbulence-chemistry interactions at an affordable computational cost by calculating combustion rates relying upon canonical reactors of small fluid size and timescale. The models may include multiscale mixing, detailed chemical kinetic schemes and high-fidelity multispecies diffusion treatments. Although originally derived for conventional, highly turbulent combustion, numerous recent efforts have sought to generalise beyond simple empirical correlations using more sophisticated relationships. More recent models incorporate the estimation of scales based on local variables such as turbulent Reynolds and Damköhler numbers, phenomenological descriptions of turbulence based on fractal theory or specific events such as extinction. These modifications significantly broaden the effective range of operating conditions and combustion regimes these models can be applied to, as in the particular case of Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion. MILD combustion is renown for its ability to deliver appealing features such as abated pollutant emissions, elevated thermal efficiency and fuel flexibility. This review describes the development and current state-of-the-art in finite-rate, reactor-based combustion approaches. Recently investigated model improvements and adaptations will be discussed, with specific focus on the MILD combustion regime. Finally, to bridge the gap between laboratory-scale canonical burners and industrial combustion systems, the current directions and the future outlook for development are discussed.

Prediction model of NOx emissions in the heavy-duty gas turbine combustor based on MILD combustion

A prediction model of NOx emissions in heavy-duty gas turbine combustors based on the moderate and intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion was proposed, and the inlet parameter sensitivity analysis was also investigated to identify the impact weight for the practical operation of heavy-duty gas turbines. The optimal space-filling (OSF) design was first adopted to determine the optimal combination of gas temperature (Tgas), primary air temperature (Tfirst), secondary air temperature (Tsecondary), gas mass flow (mgas), primary air mass flow (mfirst), and secondary air mass flow (msecondary) for minimum NOx emissions. Based on the results of the OSF design, the minimum NOx emissions of 24.11 mg/m3 were obtained, and the corresponding Tgas, Tfirst, Tsecondary, mgas, mfirst, and msecondary were 769.67 K, 825.10 K, 722.61 K, 1.71 kg/s, 4.29 kg/s, and 7.69 kg/s within the range of 10% fluctuation of rated input parameters. The sensitivity ranking of the six inlet parameters was secondly achieved as mfirst > Tfirst > Tsecondary > msecondary > mgas > Tgas with the base of NOx emissions. Finally, a novel prediction model with six inlet parameters was established to quickly and accurately calculate the NOx emissions influenced by complicated boundary conditions in MILD combustion of heavy-duty gas turbines.

MILD combustion of a premixed NH3/air jet flame in hot coflow versus its CH4/air counterpart

Moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion is suitable for solving the problems of unstable flames and high NOx emissions (ENOx) of ammonia fuels; however, studies on this are rare. This paper numerically investigates the MILD combustion characteristics of a premixed NH3/air jet flame in hot coflow (JHC) under different jet equivalence ratios (ΦJ), coflow temperatures (TC), and oxygen levels (XO2,C). For comparison, similar CH4/air MILD-JHC flame characteristics are calculated. The results show that the NH3 flame generally has a lower temperature increase and heat release, as well as a larger reaction zone, than CH4. This suggests that the NH3 flame can develop into a MILD regime more easily than CH4. ENOx of the NH3 flame is two orders of magnitude higher than that of CH4 flame at all TC and XO2,C values for ΦJ < 1. At ΦJ > 1, ENOx of the NH3 flame rapidly decreases to nearly zero, but unburned NH3 emissions (ENH3) and H2 emissions (EH2) are significantly high (∼1000 ppm) and the combustion efficiency is low. Moreover, ENOx increases rapidly (gradually) with XO2,C (TC), whereas ENH3 and EH2 are considerably low at TC ≥ 1300 K and XO2,C ≥ 1% for the NH3 flame. ENOx primarily originates from NO; however, N2O is also important at low ΦJ and TC values. Therefore, considering ENOx, ENH3, EH2 and the burning efficiency, the optimal conditions for NH3 MILD combustion are ΦJ = 1, TC ≥ 1500 K, and XO2,C = 1%–3%. In addition, compared with conventional flames, NH3 MILD combustion can reduce ENOx by one to two orders of magnitude.

Numerical investigation of pressure and H2O dilution effects on NO formation and reduction pathways in pure hydrogen MILD combustion

Pure hydrogen moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion offers a potential solution to meet low NO emission needs while achieving rapid decarbonization for gas turbines. This paper reports a numerical investigation of the pressure (1–25 atm) and H2O dilution (0–60%vol, including its physical and chemical effects) influences on NO formation and reduction pathways in opposed-flow pure hydrogen diffusion MILD combustion, where the present NO sub-pathway analysis method is also evaluated. Results show that, the present NO sub-pathway analysis method with Glarborg2018 can respectively predict thermal NO, prompt NO, NO formed via NNH and N2O-intermediate, and NO reduced via CHi and H reburning reasonably well. In pure hydrogen MILD combustion, NO emission reaches its peak with the pressure up to about 6 atm due to more NO formed via N2O-intermediate, and then decreases as the pressure is further raised, which is mainly attributed to less NO formation via NNH and more NO reduction by H radicals, finally causing the dominant NO formation pathway to transform from NNH to N2O-intermediate at high pressure. The addition of H2O, mainly because of its chemical effect to inhibit the NNH and N2O-intermediate pathways via the channels NNH + O → NO and N2O + H/O → NO, results in further NO emission reduction. The top NO contributor is changed from NNH to N2O-intermediate with H2O dilution at atmospheric pressure, while at high pressure, NO formation is invariably dominated by the N2O-intermediate pathway even when H2O is added up to 60%vol. NO reduction, which is initiated by the channel NO+H(+M)⇌HNO(+M), behaves more actively at high pressure, constituting 21% of the total NO produced at 25 atm, while its importance is weakened with H2O dilution.

Heat release characteristics of ammonia flames in MILD conditions

Ammonia (NH3) combustion is an attractive energy source with zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and a potential hydrogen-combustion enabler. In addition, the availability of ammonia and its amenability to transportation make it appealing to future energy supply. To provide fundamental insights into the heat release characteristics of ammonia in moderate or intense low oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion, one-dimensional laminar and two-dimensional turbulent premixed flames are studied numerically. In particular, the flame structure and heat release distribution of ammonia and ammonia-hydrogen premixed flames are examined under conventional and MILD, and preheated conditions, respectively. The results show that stoichiometric ammonia MILD flames differ from normal ammonia flames producing NH2 earlier, which results in the formation of a radical pool that shifts the chemical pathway towards hydrogen-related chemistry. The NH2 radical serves as a precursor for the ammonia flame and characterizes the reaction zone, and plays a crucial role in bringing the explosive nature into the system. For fixed ratios of the root-mean-square turbulent velocity fluctuation to the laminar flame speed and integral length scale to the laminar flame thickness, the flame surface wrinkling is comparable between the stoichiometric ammonia flame at MILD and non-MILD conditions. Furthermore, the hydrogen enrichment of the lean ammonia flame results in a significant increase in heat release rate due to the preferential diffusion effect. The study also examines chemical markers to identify heat-releasing regions of the flames and proposes the use of NH2 × O (on a mass fraction basis) as a suitable indicator of regions with high chemical activity and correlates well with the heat release for the MILD and non-MILD ammonia flames as well as ammonia-hydrogen flames at both laminar and turbulent conditions.

Modeling of Ammonia MILD Combustion in Systems with Internal Recirculation

ABSTRACT The present work focuses on the combustion of alternative renewable fuels, ammonia in this case, in a system, such as the Laboratory Unit CYclonic (LUCY) burner. This reactor can operate under Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion conditions thanks to a strong internal recirculation of flue gases. Experimental data, including in-flame temperatures and exhaust gas composition, are available. Numerical simulations based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques are performed and compared to the experiments to analyze the suitability of existing numerical sub-models. More specifically, a sensitivity analysis is carried out both for the turbulence closure models, i.e., RNG k-ϵ, BSL k-ω and Reynolds Stress Model, and for the combustion models, i.e. Flamelet Generated Manifold, Eddy Dissipation Concept and Partially Stirred Reactor, incorporating seven different kinetic schemes.

Air-blast atomization and ignition of a kerosene spray in hot vitiated crossflow

Increasingly stringent regulations of pollutant emissions from aviation require rapid implementation of novel combustion technologies. Promising concepts based on moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion have been investigated in academia and industry. This MILD regime can be obtained from the recirculation of the hot vitiated combustion products to raise the temperature of the reactants, resulting in distributed reaction regions and lower flame temperatures. In the present work, we consider the air-blast atomization of a kerosene spray in crossflow, which enables efficient mixing between fuel and oxidizer. We investigate experimentally and numerically the effect of the spray air-to-liquid mass-flow ratio (ALR) variation on the reaction front and flame topology of a kerosene spray flame. The spray is injected transversely into a turbulent vitiated crossflow composed of the products of a lean CH4-H2 flame. The spray flame thermal power is varied between 2.5 and 5 kW, along with the atomizer ALR between 2 and 6. The experimental characterization of the reaction zone is performed using OH* chemiluminescence and OH and fuel planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF). The Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of the multiphase reactive flow provide good agreement with the experimental observations. Experiments and simulations show that the ALR governs mixing, resulting in different flame stabilization mechanisms and combustion regimes. Low ALR results in a relatively small jet-to-crossflow momentum ratio and a large spray Sauter mean diameter (SMD). A thick windward reaction region is formed due to inefficient shear layer mixing between the fuel spray and the crossflow. Meanwhile, the correspondingly large spray SMD leads to isolated penetration and localized combustion of fuel clusters. At high ALR, the higher penetration and the faster droplet evaporation due to the lower spray SMD result in an efficient entrainment-induced mixing between the two streams, forming more distributed reaction regions.

Performance Assessment of Modeling Approaches for Moderate or Intense Low-Oxygen Dilution Combustion in a Scale-Bridging Burner

Performance Assessment of Modeling Approaches for Moderate or Intense Low-Oxygen Dilution Combustion in a Scale-Bridging Burner

Numerical Study of Critical Recirculation Ratio for Achieving Unconditional MILD Combustion

Moderate or Intense Low Oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion is a regime in which fuels burn in a distributed reaction zone generating ultra-low emissions and no visible flame front. Also known as flameless combustion, it can be achieved by recirculating flue gases into the reaction zone. A recirculation factor based on the mass recirculated is used to characterize a flameless regime. However, the original definition of MILD is based on the temperature levels of a reactor. This work connects both criteria by introducing a parameter called recirculation ratio derived theoretically from a mass balance. The ratio was numerically calculated by simulating a network of perfectly stirred reactors and performing an energy balance using open-source software. This methodology was validated against experimental and simulated data from the literature. Simulations were carried out for methane, ethane, propane, and hydrogen under adiabatic conditions and equivalence ratios from 0.6 to 1. Results indicate that a critical recirculation ratio is required for establishing unconditional MILD combustion, which changes with fuel type and equivalence ratio. In all cases studied, the critical ratio diminishes as the equivalence ratio is reduced. Hydrogen and methane require the highest and lowest critical ratio, respectively. Results suggest that externally diluting hydrogen with carbon dioxide could potentially reduce recirculation requirements for MILD combustion.

Towards a generalised artificial neural network for sub-grid filtered density function closure in turbulent combustion

An artificial neural network (ANN) is trained on moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion to predict the sub-grid filtered density function (FDF) in large eddy simulation (LES). For wide usability, a new quantity ψ is calculated by scaling the filtered mixture fraction using the stoichiometric value and a logarithmic function, which is used as an input feature of the ANN. Self-testing on MILD combustion is first conducted for validation and determining the best layout of ANN. An ANN with 4 hidden layers and the activation function of rectified linear unit (ReLU) has the highest accuracy. This ANN is subsequently tested on five different premixed combustion cases. Overall predictions of the progress variable FDF are satisfactory, and the filtered chemical source term modelled by the FDFs is in good agreement with the DNS data for each case. However, an underprediction of the filtered reaction rate occurs for the hydrogen–air flames, and the ANN accuracy is lower than that of a presumed β-FDF approach. DNS data of one premixed flame are then added to the training datasets, and newly trained ANNs are tested on remaining premixed flame cases. When the testing cases are similar to the added training dataset, improved predictions of marginal FDFs are observed, and the modelled progress variable source terms show good comparisons with the corresponding DNS data. Compared to the presumed β-FDF method, the new ANN shows an improved accuracy and serves as a viable alternative for FDF-based combustion modelling in the LES of turbulent flames.

Numerical study of NH3/CH4 MILD combustion with conjugate heat transfer model in a down-fired lab-scale furnace

Ammonia (NH3) is a promising carbon-free fuel but suffers from low flame stability and high NO emission. Moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion has been indicated to be a feasible technology for resolving these drawbacks of NH3 during its combustion. However, the effect of NH3 substitution on combustion and NO emission characteristics as well as heat transfer behaviors under MILD combustion is not well-understood. This paper reports a numerical study of NH3/CH4 combustion in a laboratory-scale furnace by using conjugate heat transfer (CHT) model, which eliminates the commonly-used fixed-temperature or fixed-heat flux assumptions for furnace walls. Main emphasis is laid on the comparison of NO emission, temperature distribution, flame structure and furnace heat transfer behaviors between traditional swirling combustion and MILD combustion under various NH3 blending ratio (XNH3) conditions. The results show that NO emission reaches to the maximum at XNH3 of 50% regardless of combustion mode., while MILD combustion generates a lower NO emission and conversion ratio than swirling combustion in the whole range of XNH3 (0% - 100%). Numerical simulation without using CHT model produces negative heat transfer in certain furnace regions, indicating the necessity of adopting CHT model on simulating heat transfer process in combustion furnaces. With the CHT model, the heat flux on the furnace wall is found to follow the same trend between the two different combustion modes, but the heat utilization efficiency of MILD combustion is slightly lower mainly due to the increased exhausted gas temperature, which is resulted from the postponed reaction zone. With the replacement of CH4 by NH3, the heat utilization efficiency gradually decreases under both two combustion modes as a result of lower peak temperature and less soot radiation.

Numerical study of the O2/CO2, O2/CO2/N2, and O2/N2-syngas MILD combustion: Effects of oxidant temperature, O2 mole fraction, and fuel blends

Moderate or Intense Low-oxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion of a syngas fuel under air-fuel, oxygen-enhanced, and oxy-fuel condition are numerically studied with using counterflow diffusion flame. Fuel composition, temperature of oxidant (Tox), and oxygen mole fraction (XO2) are selected as the main parameters. Fake species (FCO2) with the same CO2 physical properties is used for separation the physical and chemical effects of replacing CO2 with N2. According to the results, under the high preheating temperatures, the chemical effect of changing the oxidant composition from N2 to CO2 is the main reason of the changes in flame structure, ignition delay time (IDT) and heat release rate (HRR) while physical differences play a more prominent role in the low preheating temperature MILD combustion. In all XO2, the physical and chemical effects of replacing CO2 with N2 have almost the same role on the maximum flame temperature. The results of IDT expressed that chemical discrepancies of CO2 and N2 play a key role on IDT enhancement by increasing CO2 in the oxidant composition. The sensitivity analysis of CH2O for variations of Tox and XO2 shows that reactions R54, R56, R58, and R101 are the main responsible of lower HRR and higher IDT by moving from air-syngas to oxy-fuel MILD combustion.

NO formation and reduction during methane/hydrogen MILD combustion over a wide range of hydrogen-blending ratios in a well-stirred reactor

Hydrogen-blending methane or even hydrogen moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion has attracted much interest due to its advantages of low CO2 and NOx emissions. This paper reports a comprehensive parametric study through kinetic modeling with the Glarborg2018 mechanism in a well-stirred reactor to evaluate the formation and reduction of NO during MILD combustion for CH4/H2 co-firing fuels over a wide range of hydrogen-blending ratios from no hydrogen to pure hydrogen. In particular, NO formation via thermal, prompt, NNH, and N2O-intermediate routes as well as NO reduction not only by hydrocarbon radicals but also by non-hydrocarbon radicals are separately investigated. The results show that, at a fixed residence time of 1 s, hydrogen addition cannot change the dominant role of the pathway via N2O under fuel-lean conditions, whereas it can change the major NO formation pathway from prompt to NNH under fuel-rich conditions. In hydrogen MILD combustion, the predominant pathway taken to convert N2 to NO is via N2O when the equivalence ratio is below 0.8, and with increasing equivalence ratio, the NNH pathway eventually prevails over the N2O-intermediate pathway to become the dominant one under reducing conditions. The NNH pathway at lower mixture temperatures and short residence times contributes more to NO production. On the other hand, NO reduction by non-hydrocarbon radicals, which proceeds primarily through the route H + NO → HNO → NH → N2, is effective in high-percentage hydrogen co-firing, while that by hydrocarbon radicals is weakened with hydrogen addition.

Four-step global kinetics mechanism for diluted combustion fueled with kerosene

The aim of the present study was to develop a global kinetics mechanism capable of predicting characteristics of the combustion of kerosene diluted with combustion gases. A four-step model of the Aachen mechanism was developed via modification of a mechanism for lower molecular weight hydrocarbons. A simplified fuel was used to simulate kerosene, the thermodynamic properties of which were estimated based on the surrogate fuel in the Aachen mechanism. Combustion of this model fuel in a perfectly stirred reactor (PSR) operating under high-temperature air combustion (HiTAC) conditions was simulated using inflow mixtures preheated and diluted with nitrogen. In this new mechanism, the activation energy for the fuel consumption reaction and the pre-exponential factor for the hydrogen oxidation reaction were adjusted. The resulting model accurately predicted variations in temperature and major species over time. The four-step mechanism was also validated under conventional flame and moderate or intense low oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion conditions. The PSR simulations with the four-step mechanism accurately predicted variations in temperature and major species under MILD combustion conditions. In addition, this four-step mechanism was confirmed to be superior to other global mechanisms with regard to predicting the mole fractions of various species. Experimental trials were carried out with diluted kerosene flames formed above parallel jet burners composed of a fuel spray nozzle and an oxidizer nozzle, and it was found that NOx emission decreased with increasing distance between nozzles even for spray combustion. These diluted flames were numerically simulated using the eddy dissipation concept model combined with the four-step mechanism. The temperature distributions obtained from the simulations showed good agreement with the experimental data in the downstream region.

A study on the combustion performance and NOx emissions characteristics of a novel U-type radiant tube based on MILD combustion theory

Based on the theory of moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion, a 3D steady-state CFD model coupling dual flue gas recirculation and dispersion combustion was developed to describe the flow field, combustion temperature field, wall temperature distribution, and NOx concentration field during the operation of a novel U-type radiant tube (N-URT). A user-defined function (UDF) method was implemented to simulate the dilution of O2 concentration in the combustion air due to external flue gas recirculation (E-FGR). The effects of the E-FGR ratio on combustion characteristics and NOx emission were evaluated. The simulated results were consistent with experimental results. The simulated NOx concentration at the outlet was reduced to 105.5 mg/m3 at 8% O2, which was about 35.2% lower than the conventional combustion method. The study found that when the E-FGR ratio was increased from 0 to 25%, the standard deviation of wall temperature decreased from 30.3 °C to 23.3 °C, and the non-uniformity coefficient decreased from 0.2598 to 0.2183, indicating an improvement in temperature uniformity. However, the thermal efficiency decreased from 82.1% to 76.2%. Moreover, at higher E-FGR ratios, the volume of the high-temperature region (above 1500 ℃) gradually decreased, and both the maximum flame temperature and the outlet NOx concentration decreased sharply. Regression equations for the E-FGR ratio (β) on the maximum combustion temperature (Tmax) and the outlet NOx concentration (CNOx) were obtained, and an E-FGR ratio greater than 13.4% was recommended to meet the emission requirements.

Effect of Jet Velocity on the Formation of Moderate or Intense Low-Oxygen Dilution Combustion of Pulverized Coal.

Moderate or intense low-oxygen dilution (MILD) combustion of pulverized coal is regarded as a new combustion technology with great potential due to its advantages of reducing NO x emission and improving the uniformity of heat flux in the furnace. Increasing the jet velocity has been proved to be an important technical means to achieve MILD oxy-coal combustion, especially without a high level of preheat, but the transition mechanism of coal combustion modes with the increase of jet velocity is not clear enough. In this work, a high-velocity coal-laden jet combustion system on the basis of a flat-flame burner was designed to study the effect of jet velocity on the formation of MILD combustion of pulverized coal. The combustion mode transition of the pulverized coal jet is revealed by analyzing the flame structure, temperature, radiation, and reaction intensity through a variety of optical measurement methods. Theoretical criteria for combustion mode were applied to predict the formation of MILD combustion and were validated by the experimental data. In the environment with an ambient temperature of 1600 °C, the transition velocity of the coal jet into the MILD combustion regime is about 50 m/s and about 100 m/s at 5 and 15% O2 molar fraction, respectively. The dilution effect, jet entrainment, and turbulent mixing in the high-velocity jet, as the key factors to achieve an MILD combustion regime, were analyzed theoretically and experimentally. The dilution effect inherent in the jet significantly reduces the reactant concentration and ultimately reduces the reaction intensity and flame brightness while the entrainment of the jet promotes the radial dispersion of particles and the flame uniformity, which is dominant at lower jet velocities. Strong turbulent mixing promotes the ignition and volatile combustion, which is dominant at higher jet velocities.