Topic Area 1 - Combustion; Sub-Topic 1.3: Kinetics Models

The summary for the Topic Area 1 - Combustion; Sub-Topic 1.3: Kinetics Models grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the National Energy Technology Laboratory, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Topic Area 1 - Combustion; Sub-Topic 1.3: Kinetics Models: NOTE: This descriptive area provides an overview of Technical Topic Area 1: Sub-Topic 1.3: Kinetics Models only. YOU MUST READ THE ENTIRE FUNDING OPPORTUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT DOCUMENT FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION, EVALUATION CRITERIA AND INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE AN APPLICATION UNDER Technical Sub-Topic Areas. Please scroll to the bottom of this page to access the Funding Opportunity Announcement. Topic Area 1 Combustion Turbines currently operating with high hydrogen fuels currently use diffusion flame combustors with diluent (e.g., steam, nitrogen, or both) injection to lower combustion temperatures and thereby reduce NOx to a typical guaranteed range from 15 to 25 ppmv. For natural gas fuels, lean premixed combustors have been developed to produce guaranteed NOx emissions down to the about 9 ppmv. Similar developments are needed to adapt lean premixed combustion approaches to achieve low level emissions using high hydrogen fuels derived from syngas. Formidable challenges to the development of lean premixed combustors for high hydrogen fuels derived from syngas result from their unique properties (e.g., high flame speed, high diffusivity, short ignition delay time, and wide flammability limits) and range of compositions (e.g., H2, CO, H2O). Also, the DOE goal for turbines using high hydrogen fuels is 2 ppmv NOx at 15% O2 is significantly lower than what is now guaranteed for turbines operating with lean premixed combustors and with conventional fuels. Consequently, additional fundamental combustion experiments and modeling research are needed to advance lean premixed combustion approaches to produce guaranteed lower NOx emissions than achieved in the past but using fuels with more difficult and variable properties. For that purpose, the following research topics address the combustion and operability issues (blowout, flashback, dynamic stability, etc.) to achieve fundamental capabilities needed for the design of low single digit NOx emissions combustors that use high hydrogen fuels derived from coal syngas. Proposed research should consider ranges in fuel compositions (corresponding to various gasification processes) and conditions (corresponding to different turbines) expected for syngas and high hydrogen fuels derived from syngas. If facilities used in the research cannot replicate turbine combustor pressure and inlet temperature conditions, rationale must be provided for relating the experimental data and interpretations to the design of high pressure turbine combustors. Possible HHC fuel compositions are dictated by the contents of carbon compounds in the turbine exhaust that would be able to achieve a coal-based Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant operation with 90% carbon capture (i.e. the dry gas contents of CO, CO2, and CH4 are restricted to less that 5 mole% and the dry hydrogen content is in the range of 90 mole%). Applicants to this FOA should address an appropriate range of fuel gas compositions that will allow them to ascertain the governing phenomena when assessing mixing processes and kinetic data for the HHC fuel. Combustor operating conditions for conventional turbine systems using air as the oxidant could range from 700 to 950 F inlet temperatures, 2300 to 2650 F first stage rotor inlet temperatures, and pressures from 15 to 25 atmospheres. Sub-Topic 1.3: Kinetics Models (DE-PS26-08NT00165-1C) Improved experimentally verified reduced order chemical kinetics models for high hydrogen fuel mixtures are needed to achieve combustion computational capabilities that are sufficiently accurate for combustor design at reasonable computation run times and costs. The kinetics models need verification for the range of combustion temperatures, pressures, and fuel compositions for high hydrogen fuels anticipated for future turbines.