Séminaire CETHIL (présentiel - La Doua) : Integrating Hydrogen into Gas Turbines

Patrizio Vena
Gas Turbine Laboratory, National Research Council Canada, Ottawa, ON K1A0R6, Canada

Résumé au format pdf

Canada has committed to fighting climate change and is ambitiously striving to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 [Hydrogen Strategy for Canada, 2020]. Hydrogen plays a critical role in this vision as a promising candidate to replace fossil fuels, where it has been shown to increase the thermodynamic efficiency in combustion systems, while also reducing gaseous emissions of CO2, CO, NOx, and particulates such as soot. Moreover, hydrogen fuel can be accommodated within existing infrastructure, making it suitable for integration into a range of applications. In particular, the hydrogen economy is expected to profoundly alter the energy and transportation sectors over the next decades. Major industrial gas turbine developers are modifying existing, or designing new combustion systems to accommodate hydrogen for clean power generation. Hydrogen propulsion is also being actively discussed in the aviation sector [Clean Sky, 2020], with Airbus recently revealing their plan of servicing three zero-emission, hydrogen-powered commercial planes by 2035. Nevertheless, several technical challenges related to its production, transport, storage, and combustion must be overcome. Specific to combustion, its high reactivity may lead to major combustion issues such as acoustic instability, auto-ignition, and flash-back. The Gas Turbine Laboratory is uniquely positioned to address these challenges with our range of experimental combustion facilities, as we are capable of conducting low TRL academic investigations, mid TRL proof of concept work, and high TRL high pressure testing and design validation. This has led to multiple collaborations with universities, government labs, and industry, where our results have provided critical insight into the fundamental behaviour of H2 flames, the necessary design changes to H2 specific nozzles and combustors, and most importantly, how these findings may relate to the safe and effective utilization of H2 fuel in the energy and transportation sectors.