A Comparison Between the Combustion of Natural Gas and Partially Reformed Natural Gas in an Atmospheric Lean Premixed Turbine-Type Combustor

Abstract

A small-scale combustor was set up to analyze the combustion of natural gas and two mixtures of partially reformed natural gas. The partially reformed mixtures can be formed using biomass to feed the endothermic reforming reactions. Before combusting these mixtures in a gas turbine, experimental work was done on a primary zone combustion chamber to examine the combustor behavior when switching from natural gas to the wet and dry hydrogen-rich mixtures. Temperature profiles, flame location and ignition limits have been investigated for a variety of stoichiometries and several air temperatures. Possible problems concerning blow-off, flashback, increased pollutant products and excessive liner wall temperatures were analyzed. It was concluded that the switch in operation from natural gas to these wet and/or dry partially reformed natural gas mixtures lowers the blow-off limits while maintaining similar liner wall temperature profiles. Furthermore, no significant changes in pollutant production were observed. Flame area, shape and position display considerable differences in combustion regime for the three tested fuel types.

Keywords:

• Combustion
• Flame
• Hydrogen
• Reforming

The present work is supported by ELECTRABEL and the European Community through the Research Infrastructure Action under the FP6 “Structuring the European Research Area” Program.

Notes

¹Corti et al. (2004).

²Ciferno et al. (2002).

³Radmanesh et al. (2006).

⁴Natural gas composition listed in this table accounts for the Danish Natural Gas composition as used in the laboratory in Lund. Higher hydrocarbons are added to the methane content to enhance the overview of the table.

⁵De Ruyck et al. (2005).

⁶Delattin et al. (2006).

¹so called HAT mode.