Research on Promotion of Combustion of Pulverized Solid Fuel by Co-combustion of Hydrogen

Abstract

Due to the increase of unstable electric power production from renewable energy sources such as solar and wind powers, thermal power plants are becoming more important to adjust the balance of supply and demand of electricity. In addition to that, the reduction of CO₂ is required at the same time. From the background of the possibility of introducing hydrogen to coal-fired power plant as a fuel in the future, in this study, the experiments of hydrogen/pulverized coal particle clouds co-combustion were conducted to clarify the flame propagation characteristics of hydrogen/pulverized coal particle clouds co-combustion and to obtain the validation data for future development of the co-combustion models for the numerical simulation. As results, the flame propagation velocity of hydrogen/pulverized coal particle clouds co-combustion is lower than that of pure hydrogen flame, even in the condition that the equivalence ratio of hydrogen/air is less than unity (fuel lean condition). This result is different from the previous research for the co-combustion of ammonia/pulverized coal particle clouds conducted by authors, and is a new finding from this study.

Graphical Abstract

Typical images of Schlieren photograph, direct imaging, and OH radical imaging, and the methods to obtain the flame radius.