Hydrogen under pressure

Introduction

HYROPE proposes to combine unique, fundamental skills of four European laboratories to perform atmospheric and high-pressure experiments coupled to high-performance simulations of an innovative concept for gas turbines to burn zero-carbon, hydrogen-based fuels.

Potential of Gas Turbine Technology

Due to their high-power density, it would be a potential game-changing technology that can deliver energy on demand for both power and aviation. Gas turbine technology has evolved from an abundance of hydrocarbon fossil fuels but has the unique potential to be fuel flexible and burn renewable, zero-carbon hydrogen-based fuels such as hydrogen or ammonia.

Challenges with Hydrogen and Ammonia Fuels

However, these fuels raise several fundamental issues as they have very different combustion properties and emission properties when compared to hydrocarbon fuels.

1. Hydrogen is highly diffusive and extremely reactive.
2. Its turbulent burning rate exhibits an unexplained strong pressure dependence.
3. Predicting whether hydrogen flames that are stable at atmospheric pressure will be stable at higher pressures, as needed in gas turbines, remains an unsolved fundamental problem.

Ammonia is a convenient hydrogen carrier that can be partially decomposed to hydrogen but requires careful control of NOx emissions. How to handle the effects of pressure on these fuels is a major gap in our scientific knowledge.

Research Objectives

HYROPE will study the effects of pressure on the combustion of hydrogen-based fuels in a fuel flexible, staged combustion approach where:

• The first stage is controlled by flame propagation.
• The second one is controlled by autoignition.

This configuration offers enormous potential that has not yet been exploited for such fuels.

Methodology

This can only be achieved through a joint work combining state-of-the-art tools, including:

• Novel experimental facilities at high pressures.
• Advanced optical diagnostics.
• High-performance computing.

Conclusion

The project will accelerate the development of new, high-power density, fuel-flexible combustion systems and unleash the potential of zero-carbon gas turbines.