Hydrogen Enrichment Effects in Gaseous Fuels on Distributed Combustion

High intensity colorless distributed combustion has been a promising combustion technique as it enables much reduced pollutant emissions such as NO and CO, as well as more thermal uniformity, flame stability and combustion efficiency. The main requirement for achieving distributed conditions is to provide controlled entrainment of reactive hot product gases into the fresh mixture prior to ignition. In this way, the oxygen concentration is reduced, which results in lower reaction rates, promoting longer mixing times and volumetric distribution of the reaction zones. Though distributed combustion has been extensively studied for various heat loads and intensities, fuels, geometries, there is limited information related to fuel flexibility. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate hydrogen enriched gaseous fuels for greater understanding of low calorific high flame speed fuels in a distributed combustion system. Three various hydrogen content gaseous fuel (40–60% by volume) were investigated in a swirl-stabilized burner for this study, through the use of either N2 or CO2 as the diluent in order to achieve distributed conditions. The OH* chemiluminescence flame signatures were obtained in the flame front and emissions were measured from the combustor exit. The results showed that both the hydrogen concentration and diluent type considerably impacted the oxygen concentration at which transition to CDC occurred. Distributed conditions were achieved at oxygen concentrations of 10–12% with entrained N2 and 13–15% with entrained CO2 for various gaseous fuels consumed. It was determined that the transition to CDC occurred at a lower oxygen concentration for high hydrogen content fuels due to the higher flame speed of hydrogen. The flame images demonstrated that the flashback propensity of the gaseous fuels were eliminated and enhanced flame stability was achieved under the favorable CDC conditions. For NO pollutant emission, ultra-low NO level was achieved under CDC (less than 1 ppm) while CO pollutant emission decreased gradually with condition approaching distributed conditions, and then increased slightly due to the lower flammability limit and dissociation of CO2.