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UC Irvine UC Irvine Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Fuel flexibility analysis of conventional and low-NOx gas water heater burners on renewable fuel introduction Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1kt0w72r Author Choudhury, Shiny Publication Date 2019 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Fuel flexibility analysis of conventional and low-NOx gas water heater burners on renewable fuel introduction THESIS Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE In Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering By Shiny Choudhury Thesis Committee: Professor G. Scott Samuelsen Professor Vince McDonell Professor Manuel Gamero-Castaño 2019 © 2019 Shiny Choudhury DEDICATION I dedicate all I am and this work to Kalpana Chawla, Maryam Mirzakhani, Marie Curie, Tessy Thomas, Reni Choudhury, Lalita Patel, Dushila Choudhury and numerous other strong exemplary women on whose shoulders I stand. ‘Climate change is real and severe. I promise to dedicate my life and research to making a dent towards a greener future’ i TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Overview ............................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Goals...................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Objectives .............................................................................................................. 3 2. BACKGROUND ................................................................................................... 4 2.1 Biogas .................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Hydrogen enriched natural gas .............................................................................. 8 2.3 Water heating technologies ................................................................................. 11 2.3.1 Burner Configuration ..................................................................................... 12 2.3.2 Emission Regulations..................................................................................... 16 2.4 Numerical Methods ............................................................................................. 17 2.5 Summary ............................................................................................................. 18 3. APPROACH ....................................................................................................... 21 3.1 Task 1 .................................................................................................................. 22 3.2 Task 2 .................................................................................................................. 23 3.3 Task 3 .................................................................................................................. 24 3.4 Task 4 .................................................................................................................. 24 4. METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................. 25 4.1 Instrumentation and data acquisition................................................................... 25 4.2 Testing Procedure ................................................................................................ 27 4.3 Numerical Simulation ......................................................................................... 29 4.3.1 Low NOx Storage water heater ...................................................................... 29 4.3.1 Conventional storage heater ........................................................................... 36 5. RESULTS............................................................................................................ 39 5.1 Fuel Composition ................................................................................................ 39 5.2 Biogas Testing ..................................................................................................... 40 5.2.1 Impact of CO2 Admixing ............................................................................... 40 5.2.2 Ignition, flame characteristic and safe limit of operation .............................. 43 ii 5.2.3 Energy Efficiency .......................................................................................... 45 5.2.4 Emissions ....................................................................................................... 47 5.2.5 Methane Leakage ........................................................................................... 54 5.2.6 Biogas Simulation Results ............................................................................. 55 5.3 Hydrogen Testing ................................................................................................ 62 5.3.1 Impact of H2 admixing ................................................................................... 62 5.3.2 Ignition, flame characteristic and safe limit of operation .............................. 63 5.3.3 Emissions ....................................................................................................... 68 5.3.4 Hydrogen Simulation Results ........................................................................ 74 6. SUMMARY, INSIGHTS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS .. 79 6.1 Summary ............................................................................................................. 79 6.2 Biogas-addition insights ...................................................................................... 79 6.2.1 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 82 6.3 Hydrogen-addition insights ................................................................................. 83 6.3.1 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 85 6.4 Recommendations ............................................................................................... 86 7. REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 87 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Schematic of a Rheem PROG40-38N RH62 Water Heater burner assembly [62] 13 Figure 2. Schematic of a Rheem 6G40-38FN4 Water Heater burner [64] .......................... 14 Figure 3. Schematic of a typical conventional water heater (Left) and low-NOx burner (Right). 15 Figure 4. Experimental setup schematic .............................................................................. 29 Figure 5. Radiant screen burner ........................................................................................... 30 Figure 6. Schematic of a typical low-NOx water heater burner (Left) and area of interest for simulation (Right) ................................................................................................................... 31 Figure 7. Manual CRN visualization to burner flame .......................................................... 33 Figure 8. CRN for low-NOx water heater burner ................................................................. 34 Figure 9. Pancake burner assembly (left), burner schematic (right) .................................... 36 Figure 10. Schematic of a typical conventional water heater burner (Left) and area of interest for simulation (Right) ............................................................................................................. 37 Figure 11. Heating value and Wobbe Index variation with NG+CO2 mixtures. .................. 42 Figure 12. Flame shape for conventional water heater with increasing CO2 content ........... 44 Figure 13. Recovery efficiency and heating time as a function of CO2 addition for low NOx water heater ............................................................................................................................. 47 Figure 14. Emissions for low NOx storage water heater with increasing CO2 concentration 51 Figure 15. Emissions for conventional storage water heater with increasing CO2 concentration 53 Figure 16. Methane emissions for both the water heaters ...................................................... 55 Figure 17. Adiabatic flame temperature at CRN exhaust with increasing CO2 % ................ 56 Figure 18. CO emission from low-NOx water heater on CO2 addition (simulation vs experiments) ............................................................................................................................ 57 Figure 19. NO emissions from low-NOx water heater on CO2 addition (simulation vs experiments) ............................................................................................................................ 58 Figure 20. N2O levels simulated ............................................................................................ 59 iv Figure 21. NO emissions for conventional water heater ........................................................ 61 Figure 22. NOx and CO emission spike during relight for low-NOx burner at 10% H2 in natural gas 66 Figure 23. Flame shape for conventional water heater with increasing H2 content ............... 67 Figure 24. Gas storage water heater and