New Combustor Burns Fuel with Almost Zero Emissions

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a new a new combustor designed to burn fuel with next to no emission of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO), two of the primary causes of air pollution.

Called the Stagnation Point Reverse Flow Combustor, the combustor was originally developed for NASA.

Not only does the combustor have simpler design than existing state-of-the-art combustors that makes it possible to manufacture and maintain it at a much lower cost, thus making it more reasonably priced to everything from jet engines and power plants to home water heaters, but it also lowers air pollution by significantly reducing NOx and CO emissions in a variety of aircraft engines and gas turbines that burn gaseous or liquid fuels.

It works by burning fuel with NOx emissions below 1 parts per million (ppm) and CO emissions lower than 10 ppm, a rate significantly lower than emissions produced by other combustors and also avoids acoustic instabilities that are problematic in current low emissions combustors.

Dr. Ben Zinn, Regents' professor, the David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in Georgia Tech's Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and a key collaborator on the project said that the device would be inexpensive to make and inexpensive to maintain.

"We must burn fuel to power aircrafts and generate electricity for our homes. The combustion community is working very hard to find ways to burn the fuel completely and derive all of its energy while minimizing emissions. Our combustor has an unbelievably simple design, and it would be inexpensive to make and inexpensive to maintain," he said.

To reduce emissions in existing combustors, fuel is premixed with a large amount of swirling air flow prior to injection into the combustor. This requires complex and expensive designs, and the combustion process often excites instabilities that damage the system.

But Georgia Tech's design eliminates the complexity associated with premixing the fuel and air by injecting the fuel and air separately into the combustor while its shape forces them to mix with one another and with combustion products before ignition occurs.

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