We are pleased to announce that the latest paper published in our Industrial Combustion Journal is the ‘Exhaust Gas Recycling for Enhanced CO₂ Capture: Experimental and CFD Studies on a Micro-Gas Turbine’ by Karen N Finney, Andrea De Santis, Alastair G Clements Diego and Mohamed Pourkashanian from University of Sheffield, Maria Elena from the University of Sheffield and INCAR-CSIC, the Spanish Research Council and Thom Best from the University of Leeds.

This paper is part of our 70^th anniversary special editions, and was presented at the IFRF 2018 Conference in May.

Below is the paper’s abstract in full:

‘Exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) and selective exhaust gas recirculation (S-EGR) are means of augmenting the flue gas CO₂ concentration from gas turbines, with the aim of facilitating post-combustion CO₂ capture. Gas turbines operate under lean conditions, resulting in flue gases with low CO₂ and high O₂ concentrations, in large volumetric flows. This negatively affects post- combustion capture and can lead to enhanced oxidative solvent degradation in amine-based systems. Making use of EGR/S-EGR could mitigate these impacts, resulting in energy and cost savings for capture, as well as efficiency improvements in the power plant. The experimental research herein considered various degrees of CO₂ enhancement in the flue gas through CO₂ injections to the compressor inlet of a highly-instrumented micro-gas turbine. Coupled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models, the impacts on turbine performance were assessed, in terms of emissions, temperatures and combustion stability. At low loads, the impacts of EGR/S-EGR were greater – with higher levels of incomplete combustion products (CO and unburned hydrocarbons). It would appear that the presence of more aromatics (unburned species) and, to a lesser degree, the reduced temperatures, also allowed for greater nanoparticle coagulation, significantly changing the size distribution of submicron and especially ultrafine particulates. Moreover, the greater heat capacity of the modified oxidiser (air+CO₂) resulted in lower temperatures measured throughout the cycle, which reduced NO_x formation. The CFD studies used a steady-state Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes approach to corroborate these findings, with calculated in-flame temperatures up to ~100 K lower under EGR/S-EGR conditions and notable decreases in NO_x levels.’

Download this paper here.

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Also if you have a paper to submit to our Industrial Combustion Journal click here to find out how.