Study on premixed combustion characteristics of co-firing ammonia/methane fuels

Ammonia is believed to eventually play an important role in substituting conventional fossil fuels for future energy systems. In this study, to gain a deep insight into the combustion properties of co-firing ammonia/methane fuel blends for the power and steel industry, a detailed chemical-kinetics mechanism model was developed for comprehensively modelling ammonia/methane fuels combustion. Characteristics of ignition delay time, unstretched laminar flame speed and NO, CO2 and CO emissions in the exhaust gas were obtained over a wide range of equivalence ratios and ammonia fractions. High NO emissions will be a main problem as CO and CO2 emissions tend to drop when adding ammonia into methane. To gain a further understanding of the effect of ammonia substituting methane for combustion use, analyses of laminar premixed flame structures were performed. The impact of ammonia substitution was illustrated by analysing relevant specific radicals. Furthermore, to study the combustion characteristics of ammonia/methane under more practical conditions, effects of engine relevant conditions (elevated pressure and initial temperature) were also studied. Results indicate that pressure has a more prominent effect than initial temperature and there is a good potential that unwanted emissions can be reduced significantly under industrial conditions.