Effect of fuel nitrogen and hydrogen content on emissions in hydrocarbon combustion

How the emissions of nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide are affected by: (1) the decreased hydrogen content and (2) the increased organic nitrogen content of coal derived fuels is investigated. Previous CRT experimental work in a two stage flame tube has shown the effectiveness of rich lean two stage combustion in reducing fuel nitrogen conversion to nitrogen oxides. Previous theoretical work gave preliminary indications that emissions trends from the flame tube experiment could be predicted by a two stage, well stirred reactor combustor model using a detailed chemical mechanism for propane oxidation and nitrogen oxide formation. Additional computations are reported and comparisons with experimental results for two additional fuels and a wide range of operating conditions are given. Fuels used in the modeling are pure propane, a propane toluene mixture and pure toluene. These give hydrogen contents 18, 11 and 9 percent by weight, respectively. Fuel bound nitrogen contents of 0.5 and 1.0 percent were used. Results are presented for oxides of nitrogen and also carbon monoxide concentrations as a function of primary equivalence ratio, hydrogen content and fuel bound nitrogen content