Developing Plasma-assisted ammonia technology for decarbonisation of power production

This proposal aims to benefit from the low-cost storage of liquid ammonia as a carbon-free hydrogen alternative energy resource and mitigate associated issues to its utilisation to replace hydrocarbon fuels in existing gas turbine engines (GTEs) for power production.

It is built up ongoing projects at the Gas Turbine Research Centre (GTRC), where currently ammonia flames are investigated, experimentally.

Two challenging aims have been identified: (i) to enhance the reactivity of ammonia/air mixtures and improve the fundamental combustion characteristics of ammonia for use in GTEs; (ii) to optimise the existing burner for operating with pure ammonia while maintaining high fuel efficiency and low combustion emissions.

The novelty of the current project relies on the fundamental study of plasma-assisted combustion to improve the reactivity of ammonia rather than currently used approaches by blending of the ammonia molecule with more reactive fuels (i.e. hydrocarbons, hydrogen, etc.).

The concept will ensure faster ammonia/air reactivity by modifying the kinetics of oxidation based on the concept of plasma-assisted combustion, avoiding the blending of the ammonia molecule with more reactive fuels (i.e. hydrocarbons, hydrogen, etc.).

The project includes both detailed physical experimentation using an state-of-the-art optical combustion diagnostic facility at GTRC, as well as detailed multi-scale numerical simulations, covering all scales of the underlying processes from atomic and molecular levels, to the smallest scales of turbulent fluctuations to the actual burner size.

Timeliness of the project is ideal to support the use of ammonia as fuel in power applications, marine engines, and heavy load transportation systems.

Its success contributes to the decarbonisation of the power generation sector, whilst delivering a unique technology, without precedent, for power and transportation purposes.