Experimental and Numerical Investigation of NH3/H2/N2 Combustion in a Premixed/Stratified Swirl Burner

Interest in using renewably produced, partially cracked ammonia in gas turbines is gaining traction, but challenges relating to emissions of NOx and unburned ammonia remain. The present work progresses existing research on using hydrogen stratification to reduce NOx from ammonia/hydrogen flames by experimentally and numerically investigating the effects of also injecting nitrogen from the cracking process. It additionally assesses the NOx reduction capability of a recently developed novel swirl burner by adding hydrogen to the stratified flow to maintain the diffusive equivalence ratio at two high NO production conditions, slightly lean and stoichiometric. At slightly globally rich conditions, maintaining the diffusive equivalence ratio at 0.9 resulted in an order of magnitude reduction in NO emissions with only a 33% increase in unburned NH3, compared to a fully premixed flame with the same fuel and air flow rates. This stratified configuration was found to increase consumption of NO by NH2, likely due to flame morphology effects, while NO production from OH and HNO pathways was reduced. The reduced OH intensity was posited as the cause for increased NH3 emission. A strong emissions sensitivity to diffusive equivalence ratio was found, as the case with a stoichiometric diffusive equivalence ratio did not show such marked improvements over its corresponding premixed condition. Both stratified and premixed flames were found to be stable, however stratification has potential to trigger instabilities at different frequencies to premixed.