Yu JH  Park JJ  Hong JS  Lee YW  Lee YJ

10.7464/ksct.2022.28.3.238

Methane-hydrogen flameless combustion Opposed-flow Recirculation rate Hydrogen content NOx

The world is striving to transition to a carbon-neutral society. It is expected that using hydrogen instead of hydrocarbon fuel will contribute to this carbon neutrality. However, there is a need for combustion technology that controls the increased NOx emissions caused by hydrogen co-firing. Flameless combustion is one of the alternative technologies that resolves this problem. In this study, a numerical analysis was performed using the 1D opposed-flow diffusion flame model of Chemkin to analyze the characteristics of flameless combustion and the chemical reaction of methane-hydrogen fuel according to its hydrogen content and flue gas recirculation rate. In methane combustion, as the recirculation rate (Kv) increased, the temperature and heat release rate decreased due to an increase in inert gases. Also, increasing Kv from 2 to 3 achieved flameless combustion in which there was no endothermic region of heat release and the region of maximum heat release rate merged into one. In H2 100% at Kv 3, flameless combustion was achieved in terms of heat release, but it was difficult to determine whether flameless combustion was achieved in terms of flame structure. However, since the NOx formation of hydrogen flameless combustion was predicted to be similar to that of methane flameless combustion, complex considerations of flame structure, heat release, and NOx formation are needed to define hydrogen flameless combustion.