Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912

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Combustion and Flame

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/combustflame

Effect of CO2 dilution on structures of premixed syngas/air flames in a

gas turbine model combustor
F. Pignatelli a, S. Derafshzan b, D. Sanned b, N. Papafilippou c, R.Z. Szasz a, M.A. Chishty d,
P. Petersson e, X.-S. Bai a, R. Gebart c, A. Ehn b, M. Richter b, D. Lörstad f, A.A. Subash b,∗
a
Division of Fluid Mechanics, Department of Energy Sciences, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
b
Division of Combustion Physics, Department Physics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
c
Division of Energy Science, Department of Engineering Sciences and Mathematics, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden
d
Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE), Piteå 941 38, Sweden
e
Dantec Dynamics A/S, Skovlunde, Denmark
f
Siemens Energy AB, Finspång, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The impact of CO2 dilution on combustion of syngas (a mixture of H2 , CO, and CH4 ) was investigated in
Received 7 November 2022 a lab-scale gas turbine model combustor at atmospheric pressure conditions. Two mild dilution levels of
Revised 15 June 2023
CO2 , corresponding to 15% and 34% of CO2 mole fraction in the syngas/CO2 mixtures, were experimentally
Accepted 15 June 2023
investigated to evaluate the effects of CO2 dilution on the flame structures and the emissions of CO and
NOx. All experiments were performed at a constant Reynolds number (Re = 10 0 0 0). High-speed flame
Keywords: luminescence, simultaneous planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) measurements of the OH radicals
Swirl-Stabilized flames and particle image velocimetry (PIV) were employed for qualitative and quantitative assessment of the
Gas turbine model combustor resulting flame and flow structures. The main findings are: (a) the operability range of the syngas flames
Syngas combustion
is significantly affected by the CO2 dilution, with both the lean blowoff (LBO) limit and the flashback limit
CO2 Dilution
shifting towards fuel-richer conditions as the CO2 dilution increases; (b) syngas flames exhibit flame-
PIV
OH-PLIF pocket structures with chemical reactions taking place in isolated pockets surrounded by non-reacting
Flame pocket fuel/air mixture; (c) the inner recirculation zone tends to move closer to the burner axis at high CO2
Emissions dilution, and (d) the NOx emission becomes significantly lower with increasing CO2 dilution while the
CO emission exhibits the opposite trend. The flame-pocket structure is more significant with increased
CO2 dilution level. The low NOx emissions and high CO emissions are the results of the flame-pocket
structures.
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Combustion Institute.
This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

1. Introduction Consequently, the different compositions of syngas give rise to

Synthetic gas, or syngas, represents a viable alternative en-
ergy source to natural gas in gas turbine applications thanks to
its availability and combustion characteristics [1]. Syngas is a
combustible gas mixture mainly composed of hydrogen (H2 ) and
carbon monoxide (CO) that can be produced through gasification
of various feedstocks, e.g., coal, biomass or solid waste [2,3]. How-
ever, depending on the production process, the feedstocks, and the
quality of the raw materials, syngas may also contain impurities
and a small amount of light hydrocarbons, e.g., methane (CH4 ).
Thus, the combustion characteristics of syngas are not unique.
∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: arman.subash@forbrf.lth.se (A.A. Subash).
a significant change in flame characteristics, e.g., laminar flame
speed [4–7], ignition delay time [8,9], and flame extinction strain
rate [10]. Furthermore, varying syngas compositions affects the
operating conditions of typical engineering applications, such as
gas turbines [11,12]. Therefore, there is a need to understand the
combustion characteristics and properties of syngas flames to
ensure the safe operation of the existing burners [11,13].
Modern gas turbine engines are usually operated with pre-
mixed flames at fuel-lean conditions to mitigate NOx emissions
and to achieve high thermal efficiency [14–16]. Using high H2
content fuel mixtures, such as syngas or hydrogen-enriched fossil
fuels, is a feasible way to reduce CO2 emissions. However, using
syngas represents a challenge due to the presence of H2 in the fuel
mixture. The distinctive characteristics of hydrogen, e.g., high dif-
fusivity, high flame speed, and high flame temperature even at low

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.combustflame.2023.112912
0010-2180/© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Combustion Institute. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al.
equivalence ratios, can significantly alter the range of operating
conditions for gas turbine engines [17]. Previous studies showed
that syngas flames are prone to flashback [11,18]. Indeed, several
experimental works under gas turbine-like conditions reported
smaller operability windows, shifted toward fuel-lean conditions,
for different hydrogen-blended mixtures [2,12,19–21]. Thus, syngas
and, in general, high H2 -content fuels are often diluted with
additive species, e.g., N2 , CO2 and Ar, to prevent flashback and
to mitigate high flame temperature and, consequently, further to
decrease the NOx emissions [12,22]. However, the thermal and
chemical properties of diluents in the mixture may significantly
affect the flame stability, leading to blowout and flame extinction
[21,23]. Thus, a crucial task is to understand how flame stability
limits vary with the fuel composition and additive dilution to
operate the device safely.
There exists extensive literature investigating experimentally
and numerically the impact of CO2 dilution in syngas mixtures
in gas turbine-related applications [2,11,12,24–30]. The CO2 dilu-
tion is one of the most promising ways of reducing the NOx emis-
sions compared with other diluents, such as N2 and Ar, since it
can participate in chemical reactions [25,31–33]. The CO2 inhibits
the flame by reducing the flame temperature and the concentra-
tions of H, O, and CH radicals in the reaction zone [25,34–36].
Williams et al. [30] reported that the levels of NOx in a lab-scale
swirling flame of CO2 -diluted syngas mixtures were very low (be-
low 2 ppm). The NOx emissions correlate well with the adiabatic
flame temperature. In fact, with a constant O2 content in the ox-
idizer, an increase of CO2 dilution decreases the adiabatic flame
temperature of the flame, thus the NOx emissions. On an indus-
trial gas turbine, Lee et al. [24] reported that the NOx reduction
per unit of power varies logarithmically with the diluent’s heat ca-
pacity. Thus, predicting the NOx emissions of an energy production
plant is possible. Despite the benefit of low NOx emission in CO2
diluted syngas flames, the participation of CO2 in the chemical re-
actions results in the LBO limits shifting toward higher equivalence
ratios as compared to pure syngas mixtures [12]. Furthermore, as
shown by Mo et al. [37] in a bluff-body stabilized syngas flame, the
CO2 dilution affects the flame stability more than the N2 dilution.
Swirlers are commonly used in gas turbine combustors to en-
hance the fuel/air mixing process as well as to stabilize the flame
in the combustor due to the formation of an inner and an outer
recirculation zone (IRZ and ORZ, respectively) [38–42]. Although
the variety of syngas compositions has been the objective of sev-
eral studies aiming at the characterization of the fundamental
flame characteristics, e.g., laminar flame speed [5,43], lean blow-
out (LBO) limits, as well as the level of emissions under gas
turbine-like conditions [11,12,27,30,44,45], only a few studies have
been focused on characterizing the flame and on investigating the
turbulence-combustion interaction in practical devices. Park et al.
[46] showed the impact of the syngas composition on the flame
shape in a down-scaled diffusion-flame type gas turbine combus-
tor. They reported that at constant load, the higher reactivity of
hydrogen makes the flame shorter and broader. An increase of 3%
in hydrogen mole fraction decreased the flame length by 3.2% and
increased the flame angle by 4.2%. PIV measurements on a modular
laboratory scale gas turbine combustor by Dam et al. [47] revealed
that a H2 -CO syngas mixture presents a wider recirculation zone
compared to methane fuel, which leads to a significant increase
of the pressure gradient inside the combustor. Furthermore, the
propensity of the flame to flashback increases with the hydrogen
content in the mixture. The numerical analysis of different CO2 -
diluted syngas compositions carried out by Papafilippou [26] on
the TECFLAM swirl burner showed qualitatively that the magnitude
of the reverse flow in the combustor is significantly higher for the
syngas as compared to the methane flames. Syngas mixtures show
increased axial momentum and tend to reduce the swirl intensity,
2
Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912
weakening the IRZ. Furthermore, the resulting flame shape in the
combustor is mainly affected by the laminar flame speed, thus, by
the syngas composition. A numerical study by Li et al. [29] on the
effect of CO2 dilution on a syngas mixture flame in a partially pre-
mixed gas turbine combustor revealed that the flame temperature
is significantly reduced with the CO2 dilution and that the pres-
ence of CO2 modifies the radical pool reducing the concentrations
of H and OH radicals in the reaction zones.
In countries where there exists a considerable forest reserve
and pulp and paper industry, the so-called Black Liquor (BL) is
available, which can be used in large-scale (10 0–50 0 MW thermal)
power plants [26,48], or can be gasified to syngas. The composition
of syngas from black liquor is characterized by the major species
compositions, H2 and CO2 , almost equal to around 1/3 of the entire
composition each, CO concentrations around 28% and other minor
species, e.g., CH4 , at around 1–2%. To increase the heating value of
the mixture, methane is usually kept in the mixture while part of
the carbon dioxide can be removed. This results in an unavoidable
variation of flame structures between the two extreme composi-
tions, with or without CO2 dilution in the syngas mixture. To our
knowledge, there is a lack of study on the effect of CO2 dilution
on the syngas flame structures in gas turbine combustors. In par-
ticular, optical experiments based on laser diagnostic methods are
lacking. Optical experiments that can characterize the flow struc-
tures and the distribution of key radical species are needed to un-
derstand how the flame and the flow vary with CO2 dilution to
safely operate the existing devices and to improve the fuel flexibil-
ity of a burner.
Set against this background, we conducted experimental studies
of lean premixed syngas flames in a laboratory-scale gas turbine
model combustor (GTMC) using laser-based diagnostic methods,
including simultaneous OH-PLIF and PIV, to further understand the
flame structure under stable conditions. The emission levels of the
most relevant species are also measured at the combustion cham-
ber outlet to help the understanding of flame characteristics. Be-
fore performing the optical experiments, the operability limits of
the GTMC for the syngas combustion are identified experimentally
for three CO2 dilution levels. Then, the flame structures are stud-
ied under stable operating conditions. The results are analyzed to
understand the impact of syngas composition both on the flame
structures and emissions. The paper is organized as follows: first,
the experimental facilities and the employed experimental tech-
niques are described, then the characterization of the fuel mix-
ture composition as well as the operability limits are discussed in
Section 3.1 while the flame and flow structures and the experi-
mental emission data are provided in Sections 3.2 and 3.3, respec-
tively. Conclusions are summarized in Section 4.
2. Experimental setup and laser diagnostics
2.1. Burner facility
The burner used during the experimental campaign is the latest
version of the CECOST burner [20,49–51]. Inspired by the EA/AEV
burner [52], the burner was developed to feature the complex
combustion processes in typical industrial gas turbine engines, i.e.,
thermo-acoustic instabilities, lean blow-out and flashback [53,54].
An isometric view and a cross-section of the burner are shown
in Fig. 1. The burner includes a premixed fuel/air swirl genera-
tor consisting of four quarter-cones. The cones are approximately
2 mm thick, and the half-angle of the cones is around 25 de-
grees. The swirler is mounted to and held by a lance and as-
sembled inside a metallic mixer pipe of 220 mm in length and
54 mm in diameter, where the mixing of bulk airflow and fuel
takes place. A honeycomb is mounted inside the mixer-pipe up-
stream of the swirler to break up the large eddy structures of the
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al.
Fig. 1. Isometric view and vertical cross-section of the CECOST burner, along with details of the swirler (a.1), the swirler blades (a.2), and the fuel injector (b).
flow. The fuel and air mixing is further enhanced in a premix-
ing tube (length of 100 mm and diameter of 50 mm) mounted
on the top of the swirler. The combustion chamber has a 140 ×
140 mm cross-section and 400 mm length and is mounted on a
metal base plate on the top of the premixing tube. A contrac-
tion plate with an 80 mm diameter hole at the center is mounted
on the top of the combustor. The combustor and premixing tube
are made of quartz glass, providing optical access for laser-based
experiments.
Based on previous studies on the same burner [19,55], the swirl
number, S, has been estimated to be approximately 0.6. S is defined
as follows [56]:
R
0 ŪyŪt r 2 dr
S= R 2
R 0 Ūy rdr
where Ūy , Ūt and R denote the mean axial velocity, the mean tan-
gential velocity, and the radius of the premixing tube (25 mm).
The bulk airflow was provided at room temperature by a blower
(Rietschle SAP 300, maximum airflow mass rate of 55 g/s) through
the bottom inlet of the mixer pipe as indicated in Fig. 1. The fuel
was injected radially outwards through a spiral-pipe injection sys-
tem at the bottom of the mixer pipe, placed slightly above the bulk
airflow inlet. The two ends of the spiral pipe are the fuel inlets. The
fuel entered the mixer pipe through 16 holes evenly distributed
along the surface of the spiral pipe (see Fig. 1b). The diameter of
each hole is 1 mm, and the direction of injection is perpendicu-
lar to the airflow stream. The fuel flow rates were regulated sep-
arately using two different mass flow controllers (Alicat Scientific
MC-100SLPM, with accuracy ±0.8% reading and ±0.2% at full load).
To quantify the fuel/air mixing at the entrance plane of the
combustion chamber, PLIF measurements of a tracer species, ace-
tone, were carried out in a horizontal plane, 5 mm downstream
of the exit plane of the premixing tube [49]. The PLIF signal in-
dicated that the spiral pipe injection system resulted in a nearly
homogeneous fuel/air mixture at the entrance plane of the com-
bustion chamber.
Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912
2.2. Experimental techniques
Fig. 2 illustrates the experimental apparatus employed in this
investigation. The setup consists of a system for PLIF imaging of
OH radicals, a PIV system for velocity measurements, an emission
measurement system, and a high-speed camera system for imaging
of the flame luminescence in both the combustion chamber and
the premixing tube to investigate eventual flashback events. The
optical and probing diagnostic techniques are described below in
detail.
2.2.1. Optical diagnostics
A sketch of the optical setup employed in the experiments is
shown in Fig. 2. The flame structure was visualized using PLIF
(1) imaging of OH radicals, indicating the reaction and post-flame
zones. The OH-PLIF was performed using an Nd:YAG laser at
532 nm pumping a tunable dye-laser using Rhodamine 590 dye.
After frequency doubling the dye-laser output, the wavelength was
tuned to 283.321 nm, corresponding to the Q1(8) transition in
OH with 16 mJ/pulse. The PIV system consists of a high-speed
diode-dumped, dual cavity Nd:YLF laser (Litron LDY304-PIV) oper-
ated at a wavelength of 527 nm. The two laser beams were spa-
tially overlapped using a beam splitter and expanded by sheet-
forming optics consisting of a negative cylindrical lens ( f = −75
mm) and a positive spherical one ( f = +500 mm). The resulting
Gaussian sheet was guided toward the flame centerline (approxi-
mately 120 mm high).
Imaging of the OH-PLIF was performed using an ICMOS camera
(Andor iStar SCMOS) with a native resolution of 2560 × 2160 pix-
els with an individual pixel size of 20 μm and 16-bit depth. The
resolution was reduced using on-chip binning to 1280 × 1080 pix-
els allowing for higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The PLIF images
were collected at a frequency of 20 Hz. A UV-Nikkor lens was used
with a focal length of 105 mm and an f-number set to 4.5. A 320 ±
20 nm bandpass filter was fixed to eliminate interference signals. A
high-speed camera (Photron SA-Z) and a dual frame camera (Phan-
tom v311) were used for flame luminescence and PIV imaging. The
two cameras were aligned orthogonal to each other. The PIV and
3
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al.
Fig. 2. 3D schematic illustration of the experimental setup.
flame luminosity signals were separated with a dichroic mirror
centered at 530 nm (±10) placed 270 mm from the combustor that
reflected the scattered light from PIV seeding particles at 527 nm
onto the PIV camera while passing the flame luminescence to the
high-speed camera, allowing for simultaneous imaging of the same
measurement region. The flame luminescence camera had a native
resolution of 1280 × 800 pixels with an individual pixel size of
20 μm and 12-bit depth. A Nikon objective with a focal length of
105mm with an f-number set to 2.8 was used. Flame luminescence
images were collected at a frame rate of 20 kHz. For the PIV cam-
era, the native resolution was 1280 × 1080 pixels with an individ-
ual pixel size of 20 μm and 12-bit depth. A 70 mm Nikon objective
was mounted on the PIV camera, combined with a 12 mm exten-
sion ring. An f-number of 5.2 was used, and the frame rate was
1 kHz.
The PIV and the OH-PLIF systems were controlled by an ex-
ternal trigger, making the acquisition of simultaneous flow/flame
structure information possible. Each OH-PLIF pulse was centered in
between two consecutive PIV laser pulses every 50 couples of PIV
laser beams. For each investigated flame condition, 30 0 0 single-
shot PIV images were collected. Thus, 60 simultaneous PIV/OH-
PLIF pictures were acquired. Furthermore, to ensure an appropriate
amount of data for statistical analysis of the flame structure, an ex-
tra set of 500 single-shot OH-PLIF images were collected for each
selected case.
2.2.2. Emission analyzer
The exhaust gases have been analyzed using a Fuji Electric 3
component ZKJ system for CO concentrations while NOx concen-
trations have been measured with an Alfakomp Eco Physics CLD
822 M hr system. Gases discharged from the combustor have been
sampled at a sampling rate of 1 Hz with a gas sample probe sys-
tem (M&C PSP 40 0 0) consisting of a probing tube characterized
by an inner diameter of 4 mm placed 30 mm above the circu-
lar contraction section of the combustor (see Figs. 1 and 2). The
dry species of interest are then directed to an emission analyzer
rack, where their concentrations are measured. The system’s accu-
racy was 1 ppm on uncorrected NOx and CO values in ppm. All the
values extracted from the data logger of the analyzer have been
later corrected to the reference condition of 15% O2 . The emission
trends have been monitored during the experiments till their sta-
bility to minimize the measurement errors. Once the species mea-
surements were stable, 120 data samples (corresponding to an ac-
4
Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912
quisition time of 120 seconds) were collected for each point of in-
terest to ensure relevant statistical data.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Mixture properties and burner stability limits
Table 1 lists the composition based on the volume fraction of
the CO2 -diluted syngas mixtures investigated in this work. The
baseline mixture (SYN0 in Table 1) consists of 0% CO2 , 3% CH4 , 44%
CO and 53% H2 and it is referred to as the “pure syngas”. In the
mixtures denoted SYN15 and SYN34, the pure syngas (SYN0) was
diluted with 15% and 34% CO2 , respectively. The flames were op-
erated at a constant Reynolds number (Re) of 10 0 0 0. The Re was
determined based on the diameter of the premixing tube, the bulk
axial flow speed of the mixture at the exit of the premixing tube,
and the kinematic viscosity of air at room temperature. Due to the
different composition, the fuel/air mole ratio at stoichiometric con-
ditions (FAmole,s ) increases with CO2 dilution.
The effect of CO2 dilution on the laminar flame speed, radi-
cal concentrations in the reaction zone, and adiabatic flame tem-
perature is analyzed first. Numerical simulations of freely propa-
gating planar laminar premixed flames under adiabatic conditions
were carried out using the Cantera code [57] and the widely used
GRI-3.0 [58] chemical kinetic mechanism. Fig. 3 shows the lami-
nar flame speed (SL ), the adiabatic flame temperature (Tad ), and
the maximum mole fractions of H, O, and OH radicals across the
flames for different equivalence ratios . The laminar flame speed
increases with the equivalence ratio for the investigated lean and
slightly rich flames ( < 1.1), while it decreases monotonically
with increasing CO2 dilution. A qualitatively similar trend is shown
in the adiabatic flame temperature plot. However, the adiabatic
flame temperatures of the CO2 -diluted flames peak at  ∼ 1.05,
Table 1
Compositions and stoichiometric fuel/air mole ratios (FAmole,s ) of the investigated
syngas mixtures.
Mixtures CH4 [%] CO [%] H 2 [%] CO2 [%] FAmole,s
SYN0 3 44 53 0 0.3855
SYN15 2.55 37.4 45.05 15 0.4233
SYN34 2 29 35 34 0.5836
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al. Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912

Fig. 3. Numerically predicted (a) laminar flame speed (SL ), (b) adiabatic flame temperature (Tad ), (c) maximum mole fraction of H (XH ) and O (XO , in logarithmic scale)
and (d) maximum mole fraction of OH (XOH ) as functions of the equivalence ratio , at atmospheric pressure and room temperature (1 bar and 298K) for the three syngas
mixtures listed in Table 1.

and they decrease slightly with  from 1.05 to 1, due to the in-
complete combustion of fuel in the fuel-rich mixtures.
The dilution with CO2 suppresses the chemical reactivity of the
mixture due to the reduced heat of combustion of the syngas mix-
ture, which leads to a reduced adiabatic flame temperature and
lower concentrations of radicals. Subsequently, the laminar flame
speed is also decreased. Since the syngas mixtures contain high
amounts of H2 and CO, the laminar flame speed peaks at fuel-rich
mixtures, and it increases with the H2 mole fraction of the mixture
[6,7].
The impact of CO2 dilution of the flames may be classified as
thermal and chemical effects. The thermal effect of CO2 dilution
is the reduction of flame temperature, whereas the chemical ef-
fect is the reduction of the concentration of radical species (H, O,
and OH). These two effects may be distinguished by comparing the
mole fraction of OH radicals at a constant adiabatic flame temper- Fig. 4. Operability limits for the three different CO2 dilutions.
ature of the three syngas flames, e.g., Tad = 1800 K, Fig. 3. At the
constant adiabatic flame temperature of 1800 K, the thermal effect
is compensated by the increased equivalence ratio at high CO2 di- the F B was defined as the one at which the flame was anchored
lution conditions. The peak OH mole fractions for the three syngas to the swirler.
flames are 3.6×10−3 , 3.2×10−3 , and 2.7×10−3 , for the SYN0, SYN15, Generally, the stability range shifts toward richer mixtures
SYN34 flames, respectively. The corresponding laminar flame speed when increasing the CO2 dilution level, cf. also Table 2. Similar
decreases, along with the decrease of peak OH mole fractions, trends have been reported in the literature [2,12]. Furthermore, the
from 35 cm/s to 31 cm/s as the CO2 dilution increases from 0 to LBO and flashback limits vary non-linearly with the level of CO2
34%. dilution, which is attributed to both the thermal and the chemical
The effect of CO2 dilution on the burner operability limits is effects of CO2 dilution on the overall flame behaviour. The thermal
shown in Fig. 4. The shadow region indicates the stable flame effect can be identified from the adiabatic flame temperature at
regime, which is bounded by the flashback and LBO limits. The ex- LBO and flashback, cf. Table 2. From Fig. 3(b), it is apparent that
periments for each syngas mixture were repeated three times to the adiabatic flame temperature and maximum mole fraction of
ensure the repeatability of the results. The LBO limit is the lowest OH radicals at LBO for the SYN0 and SYN15 mixtures are quite
equivalence ratio below which the flame is blown off the combus- close, suggesting that the thermal effect controls the LBO process
tor. The flashback limit (F B ) corresponds to the condition when for the low CO2 dilution mixtures. However, when the CO2 dilution
the flame propagates upstream in the premixing tube. Specifically, is further increased to 34%, the adiabatic flame temperature and

5
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al.
Table 2
Experimentally measured equivalence ratios at lean blow-off and flashback limits, and numerically predicted laminar flame speed
[cm/s], adiabatic flame temperature [K], and maximum mole fraction of OH at lean blow-off limit and flashback limit for different
syngas mixtures.
Mixtures LBO SL,LBO Tad,LBO
SYN0 0.38 8.08 1402
SYN15 0.40 8.22 1410
SYN34 0.48 11.25 1484
the maximum mole fraction of OH radicals at LBO are significantly
higher than in the low CO2 dilution mixtures. This indicates that
the chemical effect is also essential in the high CO2 -diluted flames
since under the same adiabatic flame temperature or OH radical
concentration, the high CO2 -diluted flames are more prone to ex-
tinction. Similar conclusions can be drawn for the flashback limits.
It appears that the thermal effect of CO2 dilution on the flashback
is dominant in the low CO2 dilution flames, whereas the chemical
effect is becoming important in the high CO2 dilution flames. For
all flame cases, a flashback occurs when the laminar flame speed
is about 30 cm/s, Table 2.
The chemical effect of CO2 dilution may be understood from
the direct participation of CO2 in the chemical reactions. Several
authors [59,60] have shown that CO2 affects the water-gas shift
reaction, CO + OH = CO2 + H, affecting the radical pool. Accord-
ing to Park et al. [60], increasing CO2 levels decrease the concen-
trations of OH, O, and H radicals, leading to an overall reduction
of mixture reactivity. Furthermore, high concentrations of CO2 en-
hance the recombination reaction of H + O2 + M → HO2 + M, thus
reducing the concentration of H radical levels in the flame and,
consequently, affecting the branching reaction H + O2 ↔ O + OH
[1,11,12,61]. This is consistent with the numerical results shown in
Fig. 3(c and d). To compensate for the loss of radicals in the high
CO2 dilution flames, the values of LBO and F B must therefore be
significantly increased.
A third effect of CO2 dilution on the flashback and LBO limits
can be pointed out. The combustion characteristics of syngas mix-
tures are highly dependent on the H2 concentration in the mix-
tures. Thus, it is expected that the LBO process is sensitive to
the concentration of H2 , since hydrogen, due to its high molecu-
lar diffusivity and high flame speed [62], is the last species able
to burn during the extinction process as compared to the rest of
the species of the mixtures. As shown below, at high CO2 dilution
levels, the flame structures significantly differ from that of low CO2
dilution flames. The high CO2 dilution flames exhibit significant lo-
cal extinction in the reaction zones, which certainly affect the LBO
and flashback limits. The effect of CO2 dilution on local extinction
will be discussed in more detail in the following.
3.2. Effect of CO2 dilution on the flow and flame structures
The syngas flame structures were visualized using high-speed
flame luminescence imaging at different equivalence ratios at sta-
ble conditions. After background luminosity subtraction, the mean
luminosity was computed from 500 instantaneous images. Fig. 5,
showing mean flame images, indicates a V-shape luminous re-
gion for all three syngas mixtures. In a V-shaped flame, the lead-
ing front of the luminous region is on the centerline of the
burner around the exit of the premixing tube, whereas the flame
fronts near the combustor liner point toward the combustor out-
let [19,63]. In contrast, an M-shaped flame is referred to the flame
whose fronts near the combustor liner point toward the outer re-
circulation zone (ORZ) at the corner of the combustor [19].
In M-shaped flames, the hot gas and radicals in the ORZ ig-
nite the reactants and anchor the flame in the ORZ, whereas in V-
shaped flames, the reactions in the ORZ are quenched due to the
Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912
XOH,LBO F B SL,F B Tad,F B XOH,F B
0.60∗ 10−3 0.54 30.51 1751 3.01∗ 10−3
0.56∗ 10−3 0.56 26.84 1717 2.61∗ 10−3
0.85∗ 10−3 0.70 30.87 1804 2.72∗ 10−3
cooling of the combustor wall. Previous studies have shown that
methane/air flames and hydrogen-enriched methane/air flames ex-
hibited M-shaped flames in a similar burner [19,51]. However, the
present syngas flames and CO2 -diluted syngas flames typically ex-
hibit a V-shape. As will be shown later, the flow structure, i.e., the
shape of the inner recirculation zone (IRZ), is essentially similar in
all syngas flames, which is the reason for the similar flame shape
of all the cases shown in Fig. 5.
Despite the similar flame shape, the luminosity of the flames
are significantly different in the flames shown in Fig. 5. The SYN0
flame at  = 0.53 is close to flashback and the luminosity of this
flame is the strongest. The SYN34 flame at  = 0.47 is close to
LBO, and has the lowest luminosity. It is clear that at similar equiv-
alence ratios, the increase in the CO2 dilution leads to a decrease
in flame luminosity, which is consistent with the decreasing reac-
tivity and concentration of H, O and OH radicals, as discussed in
the previous section.
Fig. 6 shows instantaneous flame luminescence images for the
SYN0 and SYN34 flames for an equivalence ratio of  = 0.53. Data
were acquired with a frequency of 1 kHz and an exposure time of
50 μs. The white dashed line indicates the exit plane of the pre-
mixing tube. Consistently with the mean flame luminosity fields
discussed earlier, the intensity of flame luminosity in the SYN0
flames is significantly higher than in the SYN34 flames. The in-
stantaneous flame luminescence images also show fine structures,
particularly in the SYN34 flames. The SYN0 flames are close to the
flashback, and the leading front of the flame is already entering
the premixing tube. The SYN34 flames are stabilized downstream
of the exit plane of the premixing tube, and the leading front po-
sition appears to oscillate in the axial direction. The oscillation of
the leading flame front in the SYN34 flames could be due to the
precessing vortex core (PVC) in the IRZ [64] since the flame is sta-
bilized in the IRZ. The oscillation may also be due to the local
flame extinction and re-ignition. The onset of local extinction and
re-ignition could be flame/turbulence interaction or the poor mix-
ing of the fuel and air in the premixing tube [65]. In the present
flames, the high-level CO2 dilution suppresses the reactivity of the
fuel/air mixture, making the flame vulnerable to local extinction
under intensive turbulence straining.
Fig. 7 shows the temporal evolution of the flame areas com-
puted based on the flame luminescence for the three different
mixtures at the equivalence ratio of 0.53. The area has been com-
puted by binarizing every 500 single-shot images, i.e., setting the
value of 1 for regions where the signal was higher than a thresh-
old (set to 10% of the peak signal intensity of the SYN0 flame) and
0 where it was lower. Next, the resulting time-dependent signals
have been normalized by the highest value of the flame area of
the SYN0 flame. It is visible that the luminous flame area fluc-
tuates continuously, indicating flame expansion and recession. For
the SYN0 flame, the flame area fluctuates around 75% of its max-
imum area, whereas the SYN15 flame area fluctuates around 50%
of the maximum flame area of the SYN0 flame. The SYN34 flame
shows the smallest flame area, which fluctuates around 20% of the
maximum flame area of the SYN0 flame. From Fig. 7, one can see
that the flame area of the SYN34 flame exhibits a low-frequency
peak at approximately 10 Hz (occurring once every 100 ms). The
6
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al. Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912

Fig. 5. Averaged flame luminosity for the three investigated mixtures. The luminosity of the SYN34 flames has been multiplied by a factor of 2. D is the diameter of the
premixing tube. r and y indicate radial and axial directions, respectively.

Fig. 6. Instantaneous flame luminescence sequence for SYN0 (top) and SYN34 (bottom) mixtures under the condition of  = 0.53. The luminosity of the SYN34 flames has
been amplified by a factor of 2.

7
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al. Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912

Fig. 7. Flame luminescence signal for the three different mixtures at  = 0.53 (left) and SYN34 flame luminescence single-shot at t = 352 ms (right). Intensities are
normalized by the highest signal value.

Fig. 8. Adiabatic flame temperature (Tad ) as a function of laminar flame speed SL based on the numerical results shown in Fig. 3. The arrows indicate the PIV and OH PLIF
experimental points.

luminous region of the SYN34 flame is downstream of the pre- Table 3

Properties of the investigated mixtures at the selected equivalence ratios, . SL ,
mixing tube and in the IRZ, cf. Figs. 6 and 7. Thus, the flame area
m˙ Syn , m˙ CO2 and Q refer to the laminar flame speed [cm/s], mass flow rates of syngas
is affected by the PVC. Such low-frequency periodic flame fluctua- and CO2 [g/s], and the thermal load [kW].
tions were not observed in the SYN0 and SYN15 flames. The lead-
ing fronts of SYN0 and SYN15 flames are in the premixing tube Mixtures  SL Tad m˙ Syn m˙ CO2 Q

upstream of the IRZ, cf. Figs. 5 and 6. Subsequently, the luminous SYN0 0.47 19.2 1598 1.2 0 31.5
areas of these flames are unaffected by the PVC and do not show SYN15 0.50 19.2 1608 0.84 0.47 22.06
SYN34 0.56 18.1 1609 0.57 0.92 14.96
a low-frequency flame area oscillation.
PIV and OH PLIF experiments were conducted for the three
syngas mixtures under stable flame conditions with similar adia-
batic flame temperatures (Tad ) and laminar flame speeds (SL ). Fig. 8 investigated cases including the corresponding mass flow rates of
shows the variation of Tad as a function of SL , which is a re-plot syngas (m˙ Syn ) and CO2 (m˙ CO2 ), as well as the values of the corre-
of the numerical results presented in Fig. 3a and b. At the se- sponding thermal input (Q) is provided in Table 3.
lected flame conditions, the adiabatic flame temperature is about Fig. 9 shows snapshots of OH-PLIF images at four different
1600 K, with a maximum difference of 9.61 K between the SYN0 instants of time for the three syngas flames. The t = 0 indicates an
and SYN34 mixtures. The laminar flame speed for the selected ex- arbitrary time during the stationary operation of the combustor.
perimental conditions varies between 18.1 cm/s and 19.2 cm/s. The The V-shaped flame structures are evident in the OH-PLIF images,
equivalence ratios are 0.47, 0.50, and 0.56 for the SYN0, SYN15, and similar to the chemiluminescence images discussed earlier. The
SYN34 mixtures, respectively. A summary of the properties of the flame without CO2 dilution (SYN0) exhibits fairly continuous OH

8
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al.
Fig. 9. Instantaneous OH-PLIF snapshots for the SYN0 flames at  = 0.47 (top), the SYN15 flames at  = 0.50 (middle) and the SYN34 flames at  = 0.56 (bottom).
distribution, while, with increasing the CO2 in the mixture, this
OH distribution becomes more discrete and is found in isolated
pocket regions. These pocket structures show discontinuation of
reaction zones, indicating local quenching of the reactions in the
flames with high CO2 dilution.
In the SYN0 flames, although the local extinction is not signif-
icant, the OH signal does show high-intensity islands connected
to low-intensity regions. This phenomenon is attributed to the
diffusional-thermal flame instability often observed in lean hy-
drogen premixed flames [66,67]. Since the diffusion coefficient of
hydrogen is significantly higher than other major species in the
flame, under lean premixed conditions, hydrogen molecules tend
to diffuse to form rich islands where the reactivity is enhanced
substantially. Due to the differential diffusion, a high-intensity OH
region is formed in the burning flame pockets, leaving weakly
burning regions in between the high-intensity OH region [68].
With increasing levels of CO2 dilution, the reactivity of the initially
weak OH region is further suppressed, and local extinction occurs
in a broad region, leaving the burning pockets in small isolated re-
gions.
Although the numerically simulated laminar flame speed and
adiabatic flame temperature are similar in the SYN0, SYN15, and
SYN34 flames listed in Table 3, the actual flame temperature is ex-
pected to be lower due to the heat loss to the combustor walls.
The SYN34 flame has a lower thermal input than the SYN0 and
SYN15 flames, which may lead to a lower flame temperature in the
SYN34 flame when considering the heat loss to the walls. This can
also contribute to the reduced reactivity and isolated OH pockets
in the SYN34 flame.
In-homogeneity of the fuel/air mixture could contribute to the
in-homogeneous OH field in these flames. Reactant mixture in-
9
Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912
homogeneity can be due to insufficient fuel/air mixing in the
mixer pipe and the premixing tube. Acetone PLIF measurements
of the present burner showed a homogeneous fuel/air mixture at
the exit of the premixing tube [49]. Thus, the impact of fuel/air
mixture in-homogeneity on the in-homogeneous OH field in the
three flames shown in Fig. 9 can be excluded. Furthermore, it
is expected that pressure oscillation due to combustion instabil-
ity, e.g., thermoacoustic instability, can lead to airflow rate oscilla-
tion. The fuel flow rate may also oscillate when injected through
the 16 small holes in the spiral-pipe fuel injection system (see
Section 2.1). The fuel nozzle velocity for the investigated cases is
84 m/s, 70 m/s, and 60 m/s, respectively, for the SYN0, SYN15, and
SYN34 cases. The flow is far from choking; thus, the fuel flow rate
oscillation may be significant if there is a strong pressure oscil-
lation in the mixing pipe. This can give rise to an oscillation of
the fuel/air ratio and possibly lead to an in-homogeneous OH field.
No significant pressure oscillation could be observed in the cur-
rent stable flame operation, including the three flames shown in
Fig. 9. Thus, it can be concluded that the onset of in-homogeneous
OH field and isolated OH pockets is not due to fuel/air mix-
ture in-homogeneity resulting from insufficient mixing or pressure
oscillation.
An estimation of the Karlovitz (Ka) number is performed based
on the definition of Peters [69], and the PIV data collected for
this work indicates Ka is 0.489, 1.06, and 1.16 for the SYN0 flame,
SYN15 flame, and SYN34 flame, respectively. Thus, the flames here
investigated belong to the flamelet regime [69]. However, the flame
pocket structure shown in the OH distribution in Fig. 9 is signif-
icantly different from the structure of flamelet combustion, e.g.,
premixed methane/air flames in a Bunsen burner [70] or over a
swirl burner [71]. In methane/air flames, the Lewis number is close
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al.
Fig. 10. Instantaneous flow field (colored with the velocity magnitude) superimposed to corresponding instantaneous OH-PLIF snapshot (top row), and OH-PLIF maximum
gradient field overlapped to the corresponding strain field (bottom row) for the SYN0 flame at  = 0.47, SYN15 flame at  = 0.50 and SYN34 flame at  = 0.56, respectively.
to unity. The diffusional-thermal instability is insignificant; thus,
the flame pocket structure is seldom seen.
Fig. 10 shows snapshots of simultaneous PIV and OH-PLIF fields
for the three syngas flames (top row) and the gradients of the OH-
PLIF signal distributions superimposed to the instantaneous strain
rate distribution (bottom row). The most substantial gradients of
the OH-PLIF signal can be used as markers to approximate the po-
sition of the flame front [72,73].
The strain rate has been determined from the 2-D PIV data us-
ing the following:
 2  2  2
∂u 1 ∂ u ∂v ∂v
S= + + + (2)
∂r 2 ∂y ∂r ∂y
where u and v denote the velocity components along the radial (r)
and axial (y) direction, respectively.
The PIV field clearly shows the IRZ around the combustor’s
centerline and the outer recirculation zones (ORZ) in the lower-
left and lower-right corners of the combustor. The fuel/air mix-
tures flow into the combustor between the two recirculation zones.
The reaction zone represented by the OH PLIF signals is shown
in the shear layer between the ORZ and the IRZ. It is shown
from Fig. 10 that the strain rate field correlates neither with the
quenched region nor with the reaction region of the flame. Local
extinction is, therefore, not due to the high strain rate; this be-
haviour has also been reported in [1] where local extinction of fu-
els with a high H2 content is attributed to differential diffusion
10
Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912
of hydrogen in the mixture. Besides, the PIV and OH-PLIF fields
do not show a clear correlation between the OH pockets and lo-
cal flow eddies. Thus, it can be concluded that the onset of flame
pockets is due to diffusional-thermal flame instability [66,67] am-
plified by the suppression of reactivity of CO2 dilution.
Fig. 11 shows the OH-PLIF PMs (top row) and mean velocity
fields (bottom row) for all the investigated cases. Similar to the
edge extraction methodology used in Fig. 10, the PMs have been
obtained by binarizing the single-shot OH-PLIF images using the
same threshold. Then, the binarized fields were ensemble averaged
to obtain the OH-PLIF probability maps (PMs) [74,75], which gives
a maximum probability (℘) of 1 (corresponding to a 100% react-
ing region) and minimum probability of 0 (corresponding to non-
reacting regions).
The probability maps are helpful in understanding the mean
flame structures since they do not suffer from the pulse-to-pulse
energy fluctuations and the spatial decay of the laser beams. The
PMs indicate the chemical reactions in the flame to reduce with an
increase in CO2 dilution, as also observed in the snap-shot images
in Figs. 9 and 10. The maximum probability is 0.658 in the SYN0
flame, 0.40 in the SYN15 flame, and 0.178 in the SYN34 flame. The
SYN34 flame, having the lowest probability, corresponds to the iso-
lated OH pockets in these flames (with local extinction of the reac-
tions). This feature is very different from flamelet combustion (i.e.,
with a spatially continuous reaction zone) of methane/air flames at
similar low Karlovitz numbers and in flamelet models that do not
consider differential diffusion [76].
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al. Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912

Fig. 11. Probability of having OH-PLIF signal in a spatial location in the combustion chamber (top) and mean flow field (bottom). Contours of ℘ = 0.2 (in magenta) and
0.5 (in black) are superimposed to the PMs of the OH-PLIF field. The inner recirculation zone (in white) is overlapped on the mean flow field. The mean velocity U  was
normalized with the bulk velocity Ubulk .

Fig. 12. The width of the inner recirculation zone (IRZ /D) along the centerline of the combustor (y/D) for the different syngas flames and an isothermal cold flow.

The mean flow field was obtained by averaging 30 0 0 instanta-
neous velocity fields (corresponding to 3 ms) for each flame. To ob-
tain the instantaneous velocity field from a PIV image, the single-
shot PIV image has been post-processed by applying a multi-pass
cross-correlation algorithm, selecting an initial interrogation win-
dow of 64 × 64 pixels and progressively reducing to 16 × 16 pix-
els, with an overlap of 50% for both. The impact of CO2 dilution on
the mean flow field is visible in Figs. 11 and 12. Fig. 12 shows the
width of the IRZ as a function of the distance to the exit plane of
the premixing tube. Cold flow results from our previous investiga-
tion [50] were added as references. It is visible that the thermal
expansion of reactive gases affects the different velocity compo-
nents expanding the inner recirculation zone.
The mean flow field in the SYN15 flame is somewhat similar to
that of the SYN0 flame, whereas the mean flow structure of the
SYN34 flame is significantly different. The mean IRZ of the SYN34
flame is narrower than those in the lower CO2 dilution flames, and
the reverse flow axial velocity peaks at y/D ∼ 1.25, which is much

11
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al.
Fig. 13. Emissions of NOx with errorbars (left) and CO (right) on dry basis for the investigated syngas compositions, from measurements (a,b) and 1D planar laminar flame
simulations (c,d).
closer to the combustor inlet plane than the lower CO2 dilution
flames that peak at y/D ∼ 2.5. Since the three flames have theoret-
ically similar laminar flame speeds, adiabatic flame temperatures,
and Reynolds numbers, the mean flow field is also expected to be
similar. The different mean flow structure of the 34% CO2 dilution
flame is clearly due to the flame-pocket structure that leads to a
much lower mean flame probability, thus, a lower mean heat re-
lease rate in the reaction zone. This lower mean heat release rate
leads to the flow field closer to the isothermal (cold) flow, with a
narrower IRZ in the radial direction.
The mean flow results show that in the studied flame condi-
tions, the upstream stagnation point is in the premixing tube, thus,
is not visible in Fig. 11. As a result, the leading flame front of the
SYN0 flame is inside the premixing tube; see also the flame lumi-
nosity data shown in Figs. 5 and 6. The leading flame front is ex-
pected to be slightly upstream of the stagnation point of the IRZ,
where the flow velocity is relatively low. The SYN34 flame is fre-
quently pushed downstream to the main combustion chamber, as
shown in Figs. 5 and 6, which is likely because the leading front
of the flame is subject to a high flame stretch rate, and as such
the reactions at the leading fronts are frequently quenched due to
high flame stretch rate and the reduced reactivity in the high CO2
dilution condition.
3.3. Effect of CO2 dilution on post-flame emissions
Fig. 13 a and b show the effect of CO2 dilution on the emis-
sions of NOx and CO in the exhaust gases. The results were en-
semble averaged using 120 data samples and the error bars in the
figures show the standard deviation of the data samples. The de-
tected dry NOx mole fractions were normalized to the 15% O2 con-
dition. The data were collected for flames in the whole stable op-
eration regime. As shown Fig. 13a, the NOx emissions for all the
12
Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912
operating conditions are close to zero and well below the experi-
mental uncertainty of 1 ppm (see Section 2.2). Thus, the accuracy
and precision of the measurements may not be significantly re-
liable. However, statistical analysis on 120 data samples for each
case indicates that the NOx emission for all investigated syngas
mixtures tends to increase with the increasing equivalence ratio.
A similar low level of NOx emission for syngas flames has been
observed in the experiments of Samiran et al. [11], which is at-
tributed to the low flame temperature in lean syngas flames. The
increase of NOx with  is due to the increasing adiabatic flame
temperatures. In contrast, the CO emission tends to decrease with
the increase of the equivalence ratio. The measured NOx emissions
can be compared with the numerical predictions shown in Fig. 13c,
obtained using the GRI 3.0 mechanism discussed earlier. The trend
of NOx in the experiments and the simulations is similar; however,
the measured NOx emissions are lower than the numerical predic-
tions. This discrepancy may be due to the flame-pocket structure
of these syngas flames, giving rise to a much lower mean flame
temperature in the combustor than in the simulated planar adia-
batic laminar flame.
Another reason for the lower measured NOx is the heat loss
to the walls in the experiment, which gives rise to a lower flame
temperature than the adiabatic flame temperature predicted in the
numerical simulations. As discussed earlier, the thermal input de-
creases with the increase in CO2 dilution. Since the cold wall area
is the same in these flames, a flame with lower thermal input will
generally have a lower temperature. This trend is consistent with
the measured NOx in the three flames.
The level of measured CO emissions for all three syngas flames
is significantly higher than their corresponding laminar flame nu-
merical results, and the trend of decreasing CO emission with in-
creasing equivalence ratio is also opposite to that in the numer-
ical simulations, cf. Fig. 13(b and d). The measured CO emission
F. Pignatelli, S. Derafshzan, D. Sanned et al.
trend with increasing  is also opposite to the trend observed for
the premixed methane/air flames in the same combustor, cf. our
previous work [20]. The high CO emission in the measurements
is likely attributed to the flame-pocket structure of the present
syngas flames. The fuel is consumed in the flame pockets, but
the unburned fuel/air mixture outside the flame pockets is leaked
into the exhaust gas. The incomplete combustion of these mix-
tures in the downstream region of the combustor is likely the rea-
son for high CO emissions. With an increasing equivalence ratio,
the flame pockets increase in size, and less leakage of the un-
burned mixture to the exhaust gas is expected. This explains the
decreasing trend of CO emission with an increasing equivalence
ratio. If the flame were of flamelet type, i.e., without local extinc-
tion and flame pockets, there would not be fuel leakage to the ex-
haust gas since the fuel would be oxidized under these lean con-
ditions. The flame temperature would increase with increasing ,
and the water-gas shift reaction CO + OH = CO2 + H would in-
crease CO emission with increasing  (thus temperature, accord-
ing to the Le Chatelier principle), as predicted in the numerical
simulations.
4. Conclusions
The effect of CO2 dilution on the combustion of syngas mix-
ture (53% H2 , 44% CO, 3% CH4 on a volume basis) in a gas tur-
bine model combustor was investigated under atmospheric pres-
sure and a Reynolds number of 10 0 0 0. The Karlovitz number of
the investigated flames is about 1. The main goal was to under-
stand the impact of CO2 dilution on the operability ranges of the
combustor, on the flame and flow structures, and the CO and NOx
emissions in the exhaust gases. Optical measurement techniques
(flame luminescence, OH-PLIF, and PIV) were used to analyze the
flames in the combustion chamber, while exhaust gas analyzers
were used for the CO and NOx emissions. The main findings are:
• The stable flame regime of the combustor shifts towards fuel-
richer conditions with the increasing CO2 dilution in the mix-
ture. The shift of stable flame regime is more significant at
higher CO2 dilution levels. The change in stable flame regime
to fuel-richer mixtures with CO2 dilution is attributed to both
chemical and thermal effects of CO2 , with the chemical impact
being more significant at high CO2 dilution conditions.
• At a constant equivalence ratio, the flame luminescence de-
creases with higher CO2 dilution in the mixture, indicating
that the chemical reactions are suppressed by the CO2 dilu-
tion. The syngas flame without CO2 dilution exhibits a continu-
ous but non-homogeneous OH PLIF signal distribution. The syn-
gas flames with high CO2 dilution exhibit significantly different
flame structures, with combustion occurring in isolated pockets
surrounded by unburned fuel/air mixtures. This flame structure
significantly differs from flamelet combustion typically found
in premixed methane/air flames under similar Karlovitz num-
bers. It is attributed to the diffusional-thermal instability of
lean premixed flames with high hydrogen concentration in the
fuel mixture.
• Flow field results at constant adiabatic flame temperature show
that the mean flow field for CO2 diluted syngas flames devi-
ates from the pure syngas flame. The inner recirculation zone
(IRZ) moved closer to the combustor center axis. The IRZ be-
came narrower under high CO2 dilution conditions because of
the lower mean heat release due to the local extinction of the
reaction zones.
• The CO2 dilution affects both the NOx and CO emission lev-
els. In particular, the NOx emissions were lowered with an in-
crease in dilution. The opposite trend characterizes CO emis-
sion. This trend is different from premixed methane/air flames
13
Combustion and Flame 255 (2023) 112912
in the same burner, and it is attributed to the flame-pocket
structure in syngas flames.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from
the Swedish Research Council, Swedish Energy Agency, and
Siemens Energy AB through Project No. 44120-1 and within the
Centre for Combustion Science and Technology (CECOST, 22538),
the Knut & Alice Wallenberg foundation (KAW COCALD project).
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