The application of catalytic combustion in gas turbine for power generation

The concept of catalytically stabilized combustion is applied in the design of a gas turbine to stabilize the lean combustion in the combustor with the expectation to relieve the conventional problems associated with gas turbine combustors, such as NOx/CO pollutions, hot spots, poor pattern factors and lean blowout. Platinum-and/or palladium-based catalytic combustor, heat-exchanger, mixer, and engine core including centrifugal compressor and turbine are the integral parts in this proto-type catalytic micro gas turbine for power, and propane is the main combustion fuel for this system. The characteristics of catalytic combustion and lean premixed combustion in the gas turbine combustor are discussed in this study and the operational characteristics including system start-up and ignition, operation ranges, and efficiency of the system are also examined and evaluated. Resultant data of cycle analysis, preliminary experiments and operation tests are demonstrated and compared. Numerical analysis of the power generation cycle data of this catalytic gas turbine is used to examine the feasibility of the concept. Test parameters such as the fuel-air ratio, the flow velocity, and the pressure ratio are varied to examine the performance of the catalytic gas turbine combustor. Results of the performance tests of this micro-catalytic gas turbine are compared with the theoretical cycle analysis data. Results of theoretical cycle analysis and experimental tests verify the feasibility of the current proto-type catalytic gas turbine, and indicate that hydrogen-assisted catalytic ignition is feasible for system star-up, especially in cold conditions.