Hydrogen and syngas production from methane-acetylene rich combustion in inert porous media burner

This work shows the experimental results from methane-acetylene rich combustion inside an inert porous media burner with the specific goal of improving the performance of inert porous media burners for hydrogen and syngas production. A cylindrical burner was implemented where temperatures, velocities, and chemical species concentrations were acquired for methane-air mixtures with acetylene addition at different equivalence ratios. Recorded combustion wave temperature profiles retain their sinusoidal like behavior for fuel-rich mixtures. Acetylene addition increases the temperature of the reaction and syngas production for a range of equivalence ratios. It is shown that by adding a small amount of acetylene (2.5% of the total fuel-air mixture), increments in the H-2 production of up to 3.04% and 0.36% were achieved for circle divide = 1.2 and circle divide = 2.4, respectively. While an 11% increment on the CO production was recorded for circle divide = 1.2, which presents an opportunity to determine the optimized conditions. Methane-acetylene rich combustion showed improvements on hydrogen and syngas production when compared to methane-air rich mixtures.

Automated summary

The experimental results demonstrate that methane-acetylene rich combustion inside an inert porous media burner can enhance the performance of hydrogen and syngas production. The addition of acetylene increases the reaction temperature and syngas production, leading to significant improvements in H-2 production under specific conditions. Additionally, there is an opportunity to optimize conditions for increased CO production by adding a small amount of acetylene.