A Study on NOx Emission Characteristics of An Industrial Gas Turbine

The purposes of this study are to analyze nitrogen oxides(NOx) formation mechanism and to reduce abnormal NOx emissions in gas turbines. Industrial gas turbines emissions have potential to negative affect to the atmosphere in many different ways such as photochemical smog, acid rain and global warming. In conventional gas turbine combustors, one of the main pollutants such as nitrogen oxide(NOx) species, are principally formed from combustion process of fuel with oxygen in the primary combustion zone, and their emission levels are highly depend on peak temperatures in the combustor. In order to examine the characteristics and the effect of NOx formation, we used gas turbine of which commercial operating in Korea. From the examination, it has been found that NOx emissions are relatively high at low load(output) and during combustion mode change. Also, the effect of Air/Fuel ratio was considered. As the Air/Fuel ratio was increased in Lean-Lean mode, the NOx emission was decreased. The results of this study indicated that NOx emission levels are highly depend on peak temperature and pressure of combustion process in the combustor.