Numerical investigation of biogas combustion kinetics

The utilization of new renewable energy sources has been of special interest during the past years. Biogas can be used as a complementary fuel to natural gas for heating or power generation. The focus of this research was to conduct a detailed kinetic study of biogas diffusion flame structure. The analysis was performed using two numerical approaches. In the first step a laminar 1-D counter flow diffusion flame was employed to study chemical kinetics of biogas without radiative losses. In the second step a diffusion flame was established behind a swirl burner at the inlet to a virtual chamber in a 2-D domain. In this case a turbulent flow with combustion and radiative heat transfer was simulated via Computational Fluid Dynamics. Influence of methane dilution with CO2 was investigated by comparison of methane flame with three different biogas composition flames.