Session: 12-16-01: Decarbonization and Renewable Energy

Paper Number: 166479

Study of Hydrogen With Hydrocarbon and Biofuel Blend on the Combustion Performance and Emission Through CFD Analysis 

With the increasing energy demand, the need for sustainable and eco-friendly fuels become essential. Alternative fuels and different fuel blends are getting attention in energy generation for their potential to produce significantly fewer greenhouse gases compared to any fossil fuels. The potential fuels depend on their emission quality and performance during combustion. The aim of this work is to investigate the performance of hydrogen-hydrocarbon and hydrogen-biofuel blend through measuring its effect on the flame structure, stability, and emissions quality.  Hydrogen is considered as a potential fuel due to its characteristics such as higher volumetric energy density with zero-carbon emission. As an alternative source, biofuels are popular for its oxygenated nature which can improve the emission. Ethanol is used in this study as a source of biofuel. Methane is one of most used hydrocarbons which generates comparatively lower green-house gas emission than other fossil fuels. The study of these fuel blends is performed through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of the burner condition. Grid dependency is performed to ensure accuracy in numerical results. Sandia flame D burner is used for design and validation of the CFD simulation. Hydrogen and the mixing of 10-50% of methane and ethanol is studied in this work. The k-ε equation is used as a turbulence model.  The Eddy Dissipation Concept (EDC) model is utilized for combustion modelling due to its better predictability on the changes of reaction kinetics. Two separate reaction mechanisms of methane and ethanol are considered for the simulation. The effect of methane and ethanol on the hydrogen fuel is observed through measuring temperature, heat release rate, flame speed, and change of species concentration. It is observed that with 10 to 50 % hydrocarbon and biofuel addition on hydrogen effects the overall temperature and heat generation of the fuel during combustion. With the addition of 10% ethanol a significant change on the heat release rate of hydrogen fuel is observed compared to the same amount of methane. CO, CO₂, NO, and NO₂ concentration are measured at the 50% and 90% axial location of the burner to understand the emission characteristics of these two fuel blends. It is observed that methane-hydrogen blend generates lower CO₂ and CO at different mixture compositions compared to ethanol-hydrogen blend. The generation of NO and NO₂ for both fuel blends vary within 10-50% mixture conditions. The effect of blending hydrocarbon and biofuel with hydrogen shows higher significance in fuel lean conditions than fuel rich conditions. These results indicate that both fuel blends have potential to be used as an alternate source to control emission through efficient power generation.

Presenting Author: Saravana Alagasan Western Michigan University

Presenting Author Biography: Saravana Alagasan is currently a PhD student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Western Michigan University. Saravana completed his undergraduate and masters from Western Michigan University. His research interest is in computaitonal fluid dynamic, alternative fuels and clean energy generation.

Authors:

Saravana Alagasan Western Michigan University
Shrabanti Roy Western Michigan University