Study of the performance of a catalytic premixed meso-scale burner

• A catalytic meso-scale combustor fueled with propane/air is developed and tested.
• Temperature values and distribution at the combustor walls have been measured.
• The chemical composition of the exhaust gases have been measured using FT-IR.
• The effect of catalyst aging on the combustor performances has been investigated.
• The configuration is suitable for the coupling with thermo-electric devices.

Portable electric devices have been object of interest of the scientific community for their application in different areas. The development of catalytic combustors coupled with thermo-electric devices is particularly attracting for combustion stability and safety. In this work a novel premixed catalytic meso-scale combustor fueled with propane/air mixture has been designed and tested. The wafer-like combustor is filled up with commercially-available catalytic pellets of alumina covered with platinum (1% weight). As a preliminary investigation the stability limits have been investigated. The analysis of the temperature values and distribution across the combustor surfaces have been carried out with thermocouples, for local measurements, as well as with an IR camera, for 2D measurements. Moreover, concerning combustion processes, the chemical composition of the exhaust gases have been derived by performing FT-IR measurements. This quantitative analysis allows obtaining the overall chemical efficiency of the catalytic combustor. As a further analysis, the effect of aging of catalytic coating on the overall combustor performances has been investigated. The configuration under study has been proved to be suitable for the coupling with thermo-electric devices.