Numerical and experimental study on laminar burning velocity of syngas produced from biomass gasification in sub-atmospheric pressures

The laminar burning velocity of syngas mixtures has been studied by various researches. However, most of these studies have been conducted in atmospheric conditions at sea level. In the present study, the effect of sub atmospheric pressure was evaluated on the laminar burning velocity for a mixture of H2, CO and N2 (20:20:60 vol%) in real sub atmospheric condition. The measurements was conducted in an altitude of 2130 m.a.s.l (0.766 atm) and 21 m.a.s.l (0.994 atm) to evaluate the effect of pressure, the temperature and relative humidity were controlled using an air conditioning unit and was maintained in 295 ± 1 K and 62.6 ± 2.7% respectively. The Flames were generated using contoured slot-type nozzle burner, and an ICCD camera was used to capture chemiluminescence emitted by OH∗-CH∗ radicals present in the flame and thus obtain the flame front and determinate the laminar burning velocity using the angle method. The experimental results were compared with numerical calculations, conducted using the detailed mechanisms of Li et al. and the GRI-Mech 3.0. It was found that the laminar burning velocity increases at lower pressure, for an equivalence ratio of 1.1, the laminar burning velocity increases by almost 23% respect to the sea level conditions.