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Development of porous burner reactors

Summary

The project involves a laboratory experimental study to examine the mechanisms of ultra-lean combustion, coupled with a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and kinetic modelling study to investigate scale-up parameters.

Supervisor

Professor Andrew Harris.

Research location

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Program type

N/A

Synopsis

Coal mine ventilation air (MVA) emissions are characterised by very low methane concentrations (typically less than 1%), high flow rates (up to 1900 m3/s) and significant short and long term fluctuations in both concentration and flow.  These attributes constitute the major technical barriers to the capture and use of the methane in MVA.  A cost effective method of MVA mitigation, which does not require either a supplementary fuel source or a large-scale infrastructure for power generation, has yet to be proven.To address this challenge the Laboratory for Sustainable Technology is developing a novel porous burner reactor using advanced computational modelling techniques. Porous burners have the ability to burn lean fuel/air mixtures, and it has additionally been shown that the combustion process is stable against changes in fuel concentration and flow rate.

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Opportunity ID

The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 354

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