Coal mine ventilation air methane catalytic combustion gas turbine

This paper describes the development of a catalytic combustion gas turbine system that can use and mitigate methane in coalmine ventilation air. Each year underground coalmines throughout the world emit methane that is equivalent to over 200 million metric tons of CO2 in terms of the global warming potential from their ventilation systems. Although the concentration of methane contained in these ventilation air flows is quite low (typically less than 1 percent), the volume of ventilation air is so large that ventilation systems constitute the single largest greenhouse gas source from underground coal mines. The coalmine ventilation air methane catalytic combustion gas turbine technology being developed can be used to mitigate greenhouse effects of the ventilation air by catalytic oxidation and to generate electricity. This gas turbine system is simple and reliable compared to other systems. Bench-scale ventilation air methane catalytic combustion tests were used to obtain the design parameters of a pilot-scale demonstration plant. Four catalysts were tested at different temperature, pressure and CH4 concentrations. The experimental results are presented in this paper along with the brief description of methane catalytic combustion basics and the conceptual design of the ventilation air methane catalytic combustion gas turbine system.