No abstract

An oxygen-blown integrated coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant with pre-combustion carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) is one of the most promising means of zero-emission generation of power from coal. In an IGCC plant with CCS, hydrogen-rich syngas with a wide variation of hydrogen contents is supplied to a gas turbine. Such hydrogen-rich syngas poses a great challenge to a low NOx combustor based on premixed combustion technology, because its high flame speed, low ignition energy, and broad flammability limits can cause flashback and / or auto-ignition. On the other hand, a diffusion combustor suffers from the high flame temperature of syngas and the resulting high NOx emission. The authors applied a “multi-injection burner” (cluster burner) concept to a preliminary burner for hydrogen-rich syngas simulating that from IGCC with CCS. In a preliminary experiment under atmospheric pressure, the multi-injection burner worked without any flashback or any blowout. A prototype multi-cluster combustor based on the results of that preliminary study was made to be a dry low NOx combustor for hydrogen-rich syngas of IGCC with CCS. It was tested in experiments, which were carried out under medium pressure (0.6MPa) using test fuels simulating syngas from IGCC with a 0% carbon capture rate, a 30% carbon capture rate and a 50% carbon capture rate. The test fuels contained hydrogen, methane and nitrogen, and had hydrogen content ranging from 40% to 65%. The following conclusions were drawn from the test results: (1) The tested combustor allows stable combustion of fuels simulating 0%, 30%, and 50% CCS. (2) A convex perforated plate swirler is effective to suppress combustion oscillation, which allows NOx emissions to be less than 10ppm through the variation of fuel simulating 0%, 30% and 50% CCS.

The successful combination of coal-based integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology with carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS) requires gas turbines that can achieve dry low-NOx combustion of hydrogen-rich syngas with a wide range of hydrogen concentrations for lower emissions and higher plant efficiency. The authors have been developing a “multiple-injection burner” to achieve dry low-NOx combustion of such hydrogen-rich fuels. The purpose of this paper is to experimentally investigate the combustion characteristics of a multiple-injection burner with a convex perforated plate in order to determine its effectiveness in suppressing combustion oscillation. The experiments were conducted at atmospheric pressure. Three kinds of fuel with hydrogen concentrations ranging from 40 to 84% were tested. The temperature of the combustion gas at the burner exit was 1775 K. The experimental results show that the convex burner was effective in suppressing combustion oscillation: it achieved stable low-NOx emissions of less than 10 ppm for all the test fuels. These findings demonstrate that the convex burner can achieve stable low-NOx combustion of hydrogen-rich fuels with a wide range of hydrogen concentrations by suppressing combustion oscillation.

An oxygen-blown integrated coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC) plant with precombustion carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) is one of the most promising means of zero-emission generation of power from coal. In an IGCC plant with CCS, hydrogen-rich syngas with a wide variation of hydrogen contents is supplied to a gas turbine. Such hydrogen-rich syngas poses a great challenge to a low NOx combustor based on premixed combustion technology, because its high flame speed, low ignition energy, and broad flammability limits can cause flashback and/or autoignition. On the contrary, a diffusion combustor suffers from the high flame temperature of syngas and the resulting high NOx emission. The authors applied a “multi-injection burner” concept to a preliminary burner for hydrogen-rich syngas simulating that from IGCC with CCS. In a preliminary experiment under atmospheric pressure, the multi-injection burner worked without any flashback or any blowout. A prototype multicluster combustor based on the results of that preliminary study was made to be a dry low NOx combustor for hydrogen-rich syngas of IGCC with CCS. It was tested in experiments, which were carried out under medium pressure (0.6 MPa) using test fuels simulating syngas from IGCC with a 0% carbon capture rate, a 30% carbon capture rate, and a 50% carbon capture rate. The test fuels contained hydrogen, methane, and nitrogen, and had a hydrogen content ranging from 40% to 65%.The following conclusions were drawn from the test results: (1) the tested combustor allows the stable combustion of fuels simulating 0%, 30%, and 50% CCS, (2) a convex perforated plate swirler is effective to suppress combustion oscillation, which allows NOx emissions to be less than 10 ppm through the variation of fuel simulating 0%, 30%, and 50% CCS, (3) the extended stable combustion region and enhanced entrainment and mixing due to the convex perforated plate improves the cooling of the combustor liner metal to be less than the liner metal temperature criterion.

To demonstrate the applicability of a “multiple-injection burner” to dry low-NOx combustion of hydrogen-rich fuels, the combustion characteristics of a burner were experimentally investigated. The experimental results show that a burner with a flame lift-off length of 5 mm and a fuel-injection-hole diameter of 1.5 mm achieves low NOx concentration of less than 6 ppm for hydrogen-rich fuels with a wide range of hydrogen concentrations. This finding demonstrates that the burner achieves dry low-NOx combustion of these hydrogen-rich fuels without need for any modification of the burner’s configuration. Moreover, it was found that fuel distribution, fuel composition, flame lift-off length, and fuel-jet velocity have significant effects on the burners’ combustion characteristics.