Berkeley Labs Ultraclean Combustion Technology For Electricity Generation Fires Up in Hydrogen Tests

Contact: Allan Chen (510) 486-4210, a_chen@lbl.gov

BERKELEY, CA — An experimental gas turbine simulator equipped with an ultralow-emissions combustion technology called LSI has been tested successfully using pure hydrogen as a fuel – a milestone that indicates a potential to help eliminate millions of tons of carbon dioxide and thousands of tons of NOx from power plants each year.

The LSI (low-swirl injector) technology, developed by Robert Cheng of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, recently won a 2007 R&D 100 award from R&D magazine as one of the top 100 new technologies of the year.

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The LSI holds great promise for its near-zero emissions of nitrogen oxides, gases that are emitted during the combustion of fuels such as natural gas during the production of electricity. Nitrogen oxides, or NOx, are greenhouse gases as well as components of smog.

The Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability initially funded the development of the LSI for use in industrial gas turbines for on-site (i.e. distributed) electricity production. The purpose of this research was to develop a natural gas-burning turbine using the LSI’s ability to substantially reduce NOx emissions.

Cheng, Berkeley Lab colleague David Littlejohn, and Kenneth Smith and Wazeem Nazeer from Solar Turbines Inc. of San Diego adapted the low-swirl injector technology to the Taurus 70 gas turbine that produces about seven megawatts of electricity. The team’s effort garnered them the R&D 100 honor. It is continuing the LSI development for renewable fuels available from landfills, carbon-neutral fuels from organic waste treatments, and for fuels from industrial processes such as petroleum refining.

“This is a kind of rocket science,” says Cheng, who notes that these turbines, which are being used to produce electricity by burning gaseous fuels, are similar in operating principle to turbines that propel jet airplanes.

DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy is funding another project in which the LSI is being tested for its ability to burn syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) and hydrogen fuels in an advanced IGCC plant (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) called FutureGen, which is planned to be the world’s first near-zero-emissions coal power plant. The intention of the FutureGen plant is to produce hydrogen from gasification of coal and sequester the carbon dioxide generated by the process. The LSI is one of several combustion technologies being evaluated for use in the 200+- megawatt utility-size hydrogen turbine that is a key component of the FutureGen plant.

The collaboration between Berkeley Lab and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Morgantown, WV, recently achieved the milestone of successfully test-firing an LSI unit using pure hydrogen as its fuel.

Because the LSI is a simple and cost-effective technology that can burn a variety of fuels, it has the potential to help eliminate millions of tons of carbon dioxide and thousands of tons of NOx from power plants each year.

In a letter of support to the R&D 100 selection committee, Leonard Angello, manager of Combustion Turbine Technology for the Electric Power Research Institute, wrote: “I am impressed by the potential of this device as a critical enabling technology for the next generation coal-based Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plants with CO2 capture…This application holds promise for the gas turbines in IGCC power plants that operate on high-hydrogen-content syngas fuels or pure hydrogen.”

The low swirl injector is a mechanically simple device with no moving parts that imparts a mild spin to the gaseous fuel and air mixture that causes the mixture to spread out. The flame is stabilized within the spreading flow just beyond the exit of the burner. Not only is the flame stable, but it also burns at a lower temperature than that of conventional burners. The production of nitrogen oxides is highly temperature-dependent, and the lower temperature of the flame reduces emissions of nitrogen oxides to very low levels.

“The LSI principle defies conventional approaches,” says Cheng. “Combustion experts worldwide are just beginning to embrace this counter-intuitive idea. Principles from turbulent fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and flame chemistry are all required to explain the science underlying this combustion phenomenon.”

Natural gas-burning turbines with the low-swirl injector emit an order of magnitude lower levels of NOx than conventional turbines. Tests at Berkeley Lab and Solar Turbines showed that the burners with the LSI emit 2 parts per million of NOx (corrected to 15% oxygen), more than five times times less than conventional burners.

A more significant benefit of the LSI technology is its ability to burn a variety of different fuels from natural gas to hydrogen and the relative ease to incorporate it into current gas turbine design — extensive redesign of the turbine is not needed. The LSI is being designed as a drop-in component for gas-burning turbine power plants.

This technology is available for license for gas turbines and certain other fields of use.

For information, go to http://www.lbl.gov/Tech-Transfer/techs/lbnl0916.html.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, CA. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California. Visit our website athttp://www.lbl.gov.

Additional Information

For more information about low-swirl combustion research, see:http://eetd.lbl.gov/aet/combustion/LSC-info/
For more information about DOE’s FutureGen initiative, see:http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/futuregen/

PROJECT - PRINT Gas TUrbine with a 3D PRINTER !!

Ultraclean Low Swirl Combustion

IB-916

E.O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

APPLICATIONS OF TECHNOLOGY:

Laboratory UCLSB prototype with 5 cm internal diameter, firing at a rate of 15 kilowatts. This burner is made entirely out of plastic components to showcase its unique lifted flame feature.

Commercial HVAC Systems
Industrial Boilers
Distillation Columns
Water Heaters
Furnaces
Clothes Dryers
Power Generators

ADVANTAGES:

SAFETY: Broad operating range of the fuel-to-air ratio limits risk of blow-off and flashback
FUEL EFFICIENCY: Improved fuel efficiency dependent on application
NOx EMISSIONS: Ultra-low NOx emissions
OZONE PRODUCTION: Ultra-low NOx means ultra-low ozone production.
MANUFACTURABILITY: Low tolerance parts, Reynolds number scaling not necessary

ABSTRACT: Burners are used in industry for a wide range of applications including water heaters, power generators, boilers, and HVAC systems. Parallel consumer applications include gas-fired home water heaters, heating systems, and clothes dryers. Natural gas is more efficient and less expensive than electricity and is the current and future fuel of choice. However, conventional gas burners emit oxides of nitrogen (NOx) creating ozone in the lower atmosphere due to incomplete fuel combustion and high temperature operation.

Robert Cheng at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory originally developed a weak swirl burner as a better way to stabilize flame for scientific study. As with many purely scientific investigations, the resulting device is a better performer than those commercially available. The new burner produces almost no NOx, the chemical responsible for ozone in the lower atmosphere. The shape and temperature of the flame are responsible for the improvement, but the actual result will be device dependent. The simplicity of the new design eliminates device scaling and tolerance problems thereby aiding manufacturability. The design could replace most medium and small scale burners with flame temperature requirements below 2,600deg.F.

Market Driver: NOx is responsible for the dirty brown air over most U.S. cities. More than 100 U.S. cities have unsafe ozone levels that exceed federal health standards. Many cities are considering limiting installation of new conventional gas burners. Government energy-saving incentives and pollution control regulations like those for efficient lighting and auto emissions should cause the market to grow at a rapid pace.

STATUS: U.S. Patent #5,735,681 and #5,879,148. Available for licensing.

REFERENCE NUMBER: IB-916/ IB-1175

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, PLEASE SEE:

Ultralean Low-swirl Combustion in the News