Gas Turbine Products

Gas Turbine Products

Catalytic combustion is a pollution prevention technology offering ultra-clean emissions and high combustion stability. Applications for gas turbines have been under development around the world since Dr. William Pfefferle, PCI's chief scientist, invented the first catalytic combustor in 1970. PCI catalytic combustion technology enables gas turbines to achieve ultra-low NOx emissions without efficiency penalty across a wide turndown range with low acoustics.

A primary PCI thrust is developing clean and efficient ultra-low NOx catalytic combustors for central station, industrial, and distributed power generation gas turbine engines. These catalytic combustors offer ultra-low emissions with efficient high firing temperatures and wide turndown stability, operability and reliability. Our technology can be readily adapted for application in microturbines. Another area of PCI development is catalytic pilot burners for Dry Low NOx gas turbines. These compact burners enable application of catalytic combustion technology within existing turbine operating envelopes.

PCI is also involved in development of related gas turbine applications for syngas and hydrogen combustion. The syngas program, supported by DOE, is exploring catalytic combustion in gas turbines of hydrogen-rich syngas produced by Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) coal to syngas power generation plants.

Other gas turbine products under development include flashback arrestors and catalytic liners. Multiple approaches are feasible, with PCI technology tailoring product development to individual application requirements.

Rich Catalytic Lean (RCL) burn catalytic combustion is PCI’s patented solution for a low NOX combustor approach for gas turbines. The system (click diagram at left for larger view)uses a rich catalytic reactor with air cooling and subsequent mixing of the reactor output with the cooling air to form a lean mixture for combustion. In the process, the combustion air stream is split into two parts upstream of the catalyst. One part is mixed with all of the fuel forming a rich fuel/air mixture and contacted with the catalyst, while the second part is used to cool the catalyst. The catalyst is cooled only by primary combustion air, so that no heat is extracted from the system. The rich fuel/air stream undergoes partial fuel oxidation followed by mixing of the partially reacted fuel with the cooling stream to produce a reactive, fuel-lean mixture. This lean mixture can then be burned stably in a downstream combustion zone, with the result being lower NOx and CO emissions and greater combustion stability than with DLN/DLE technologies.

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