Testing of Liquid-Fueled Gas Turbine with High EGR Fraction to Support Carbon Capture System Integration
Abstract
To address the long-term threat of climate change, the US Navy seeks to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 with a 65% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030. The propulsion systems of US Navy vessels must be optimized and decarbonized to achieve these targets.A short- and mid-term solution to decarbonize existing and future propulsion systems without sacrificing mission readiness is to fuel the gas turbine prime movers with high energy dense hydrocarbon fuels that are renewably derived from carbon-free power. Furthermore, by capturing and recycling the concentrated CO2 in the exhaust of these engines would provide the carbon feedstock for use in shipboard/portside fuel synthesis - directly closing the carbon cycle. The size, weight, and energy penalty of carbon capture systemsscale inversely with the concentration of CO2 in the exhaust plume, which makes them extremely challenging to use in a shipboard application due to the relatively low concentration of CO2 in the exhaust. To address this challenge, Colorado State University proposes to retrofit a 3.5 MWe Centaur 40 gas turbine from Solar Turbines to accommodate liquid fuels and up to 50% EGR (maximum predictedEGR fraction capable of achieving stable combustion without oxygen augmentation) to increase the CO2 concentration in the exhaust stream which will enable future shipboard carbon capture. Incorporating 50% EGR will increase the CO2 concentration in the exhaust from approximately 3% to 6% and translate to a 30% reduction in carbon capture system size. Over the three-year program, CSU will commission the 3.5 MWe Centaur 40 gas turbine engine to run on liquid fuels, quantify baseline performance, and implement a surrogate EGR system to simulate the gas mixtures from real EGR. The testing protocol will experimentally validate performance simulations from Solar Turbines and quantify the performance limits with and without EGR. The team expects that successful execution of the program objectives will enable integration and testing of future carbon reduction and capture systems developed by consortium partners at meaningful scales needed to accelerate the adoption of new technologies and practices to achieve the US Navy#s ambitious decarbonization goals.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 11, 2023
- Source ID
- N000142312730
Entities
People
- Bret Windom
Organizations
- Colorado State University
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy