Partial Oxidation of Natural Gas Using Internal Combustion Engines

Natural gas (methane) fueled engines are a new technology which can produce power as well as synthesis gas. The power from the engine is useful in a variety of direct drive systems, i.e. HVAC or stationary generators. However, its application should be limited to non-mobile applications because of the extra systems necessary to capture and separate the hydrogen. The hydrogen obtained from the system can then be used to power fuel cells for a direct electro-chemical process, or to enrich other fuels in other internal combustion engines. In this report, the operating conditions of the methane fueled modified compression ignition engine are subjected to some narrow band parametric investigation. The temperature and pressure distributions and species concentrations are reported. Engine performance data including air-fuel ratio, thermal efficiency, indicated specific fuel consumption and gross indicated power are calculated. The effects of intake temperature and equivalence ratio on temperature and pressure distributions and species concentrations are studied. The chemical kinetics approach is used in the model to numerically simulate the combustion of natural gas in the engine. All the stages of combustion including the initial non-equilibrium one are captured. For this analysis, a chemical kinetic code, CHEMKIN 3.71 is used.