INFLUENCE OF RENEWABLE GAS ADDITION TO NATURAL GAS ON THE COMBUSTION PERFORMANCE OF COOKTOP BURNERS

摘要

This paper investigates the combustion performance of a commercial cooktop burner operating on natural gas and renewable biogas. Various blends of carbon dioxide and methane are used to simulate biogas and fed as fuel to the cooktop burners. Combustion operation on standard pipeline natural gas is taken as a reference for comparison with other fuel classes. In this study, different configurations of cooktop burners available in the market were investigated to establish similarities and differences. Based on the current regulations and testing standards, a protocol for testing and evaluating the cooktop burner combustion performance was generated and adopted in this research. Experimental investigation of the flame characteristics, ignition properties, cooking efficiency, and emissions (CO, NO_x, UHC) were studied as a function of gas composition. The results indicate that, based on the overall performance of the cooktop burners, up to 5% CO_2 can be added to pipeline natural gas without impacting operation. Different methodologies of analyzing emissions were compared with each other, which can provide insight into future emission regulations on open-air residential or light industrial burners.