Emissions and operational aspects of methanol as an alternative Emissions and operational aspects of methanol as an alternative fuel in a stationary gas turbine fuel in a stationary gas turbine During the past thirty years two major concerns have developed with our current fuels. These concerns are reliable supplies and pollution. Because of these problems there has been a great interest in alternate fuels such as alcohol and natural gas. Since 1997 research has been conducted at West Virginia

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... niversity on methanol as an alternate fuel for gas turbines. There have been two main areas of study in this research, the problems associated with operating a gas turbine on methanol and exhaust gas emissions. There are two major differences between methanol and aviation kerosene that affect the operation of a gas turbine. The first is methanol's poor lubricating properties and the second is methanol's lower heating value. During this research techniques have been developed to measure the lubricating properties of methanol and various additives. Suitable lubricant additives were found to improve methanol's lubricity to equal that of aviation kerosene, with as little as 1% additive. The lower heating value of methanol required modifications to the WVU gas turbine's fuel system and atomizer, to provide higher flow rate of fuel then required with aviation kerosene. The gas turbine was modified and operated on methanol for an extended period, without failure. Exhaust gas emissions were tested for carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), oxides of nitrogen (NO x ), total hydrocarbons (HC), and particulate matter (PM). During operation on methanol significant reductions in NO x and HC emissions were observed. Without significant change in turbine inlet temperature, this observation can only be explained by a significant reduction in primary combustion zone peak temperature. Combustion completion with methanol must then extend into the secondary dilution air zone. Start-up at idle and even at low bleed air power levels, proved to be impossible on methanol. At these low power levels, engine flame-out was experienced during fuel change over from aviation kerosene to methanol. EMISSIONS AND OPERATIONAL ASPECTS OF METHANOL AS AN ALTERNATIVE FUEL IN A STATIONARY GAS TURBINE ABSTRACT iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS