Superadiabatic Combustion with Counterflow Heat Exchange

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Award AbstractProposal Number: CTS- 0552640Principal Investigator: Ellzey, Janet L.Institution: University of Texas AustinProposal Title: Superadiabatic Combustion with Counterflow Heat Exchange The hydrogen fuel cell is a promising technology due to its environmentally clean qualities and high efficiencies. While hydrogen does not occur naturally, it constitutes the main building block of hydrocarbon fuels such as natural gas, petroleum derivatives, or ethanol. The process of stripping hydrogen from a hydrocarbon fuel is often referred to as reforming and the resulting gas consisting of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and other species is called a syngas. The syngas can be used as an additive to a conventional hydrocarbon fuel or be purified and used as a fuel in fuel cells. In this project, a new technique for producing a syngas from a hydrocarbon fuel will be investigated. The intellectual merit lies in developing a new, more robust means of reforming hydrocarbon fuels. Conventional technologies for reforming often use catalysts which have restrictions on inlet temperature, pressure, and mixture quality for optimum performance. In the proposed project, the fuel reforming process is based on the concept of superadiabatic combustion, where heat is recirculated from the combustion zone upstream to the unburned mixture. The elevated, or superadiabatic, temperatures are sufficient to promote conversion of very rich hydrocarbon/air mixtures, which lie outside the normal flammability limits,. The proposed design consists of a counterflow heat exchanger in which heat from the hot products in one channel is transferred to the cold incoming mixture in the neighboring channel. This design has the potential to produce large flow rates of syngas with a high hydrogen content at steady state operation.The proposed project will have broader impacts beyond the research results. The PI is committed to developing a strong U.S. workforce and has an excellent record of recruiting U.S. citizens into her research group. She meets on a weekly basis with undergraduate women students in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and so has an excellent opportunity to recruit women students onto the project. In addition, the experience gained on this project will advance the careers of the students involved. The combination of both experimental and computational experience positions the student for a variety of professional positions in a promising new technical area.