N2, CO2, and H2O are impurity
components in the biogas fuel production process, which are added
at an appropriate amount to the combustion of hydrocarbon fuel that
can effectively reduce the emissions of NO
x
and soot precursors [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)]. In
this paper, using N2, CO2, and H2O as dilution gas, the CHEMKIN-II/PREMIX code with detailed chemical
reaction mechanism GRI-Mech 3.0 was chosen to calculate the premixed
combustion characteristics and NO
x
emissions
of CH4. At different equivalence ratios (Φ = 0.8,
1.0, and 1.2) and blending ratios (0–40%), the physical and
chemical effects of different dilution gases were systematically studied
through the introduction of hypothetical substances FN2, FCO2, and FH2O. The results show that the
laminar burning velocity and adiabatic flame temperature of CH4 were decreased by adding N2, CO2, and
H2O, and the influence of the three diluents increases
with the increase of the blending ratios, following the order of CO2 > H2O > N2. Moreover, the physical
and chemical effects are greatest at stoichiometric conditions, and
physical effects are much greater than chemical effects. In particular,
at Φ = 1.2, the chemical effect of H2O leads to the
adiabatic flame temperatures of CH4 gradually increasing
as the dilution ratio (D
r) increases.
The sensitivity analysis of the main elementary reactions, which play
a leading role in the influence of NO generation, shows that the adiabatic
flame temperature of CH4 is reduced after adding N2, CO2, and H2O, depressing the generation
of NO. The generation path of NO is mainly prompt NO
x
, and the responsible reactions are reactions R38, H + O2 ⇄ O + OH; R240, CH + N2 = HCN + N; and
R52, H + CH3 (+M) ⇄ CH4 (+M).