Energy & Fuels, Vol.15, No.3, 541-551, 2001
Prediction of nitric oxide destruction by-advanced reburning
Advanced reburning refers to a process wherein injection of a hydrocarbon fuel such as natural gas aft of the combustion zone is followed by injection of a nitrogen-containing species such as ammonia. In recent work, the authors used a systematic reduction:method to develop a four-step, eight-species reduced mechanism from a 312-step, 50-species full mechanism for advanced reburning processes. The four-step model has been integrated into a comprehensive computational fluid dynamics combustion code, PCGC-3. In this work, the integrated model for advanced reburning has been evaluated through comparisons with experimental data for species and temperature profiles as well as effluent NO Concentrations. Comparisons: are shown herein for a base case, with reburning only (natural gas addition) and with advanced natural gas reburning (natural gas addition followed by NH3 addition). Profile comparison show that the predicted flow-average axial NO concentration with advanced reburning followed the trends of experimental data, though the predicted initial NO level was lower than experimental da:ta by 20 -30%, partly due to both inaccurate prediction of flame structure and experimental error. Comparisons of effluent molar flux of NO with variation in swirl number, (NH3/NO)(in) and location of NH3 injection show that predicted trends and magnitudes of change were consistent with measured trends, though the predicted NO reduction was typically much-higher than measured. Measurements and predictions both showed that NO reduction increased with increasing swirl number, (NH3/NO)(in) and reburning zone residence time. Most of the NO reduction is caused by chemical reaction, and only a small part of the NO reduction is due to dilution. Study results provide directions for further research.