| Gas turbine power generation is a significant source of electric power generation. Most gas turbines are fueled with natural gas, but hydrogen-rich syngas fuel sources may reduce carbon emissions. To most effectively design gas turbine systems it is necessary to under- stand fuel combustion behavior. Computational models and experimental results differ by three orders of magnitude in their ignition time predictions for the low temperature, high pressure regimes common in the combustor inlet region of the gas turbine engine. A computational study suggests that gas-phase reactions alone are not the sole contributing factor to this observed discrepancy. Heterogeneous catalytic reactions between the reactant gas and the reactor surface offer one possible explanation. An experimental approach is used to test this hypothesis. The experimental apparatus includes a small resistively heated tubular reactor downstream of a pulsed valve. Different reactor materials have been tested, including known catalysts such as nickel, and engineering materials such as Inconel and stainless steel. Products exhaust to a low-pressure atmosphere and are detected by matrix isolation infrared spectroscopy. Results of experiments indicate that combustion is enhanced the presence of a pure-nickel surface. |
