Abstract:
Hydrogen-enriched combustion in gas-fired boilers represents a viable pathway for mitigating carbon emissions, yet the synergistic influence of multiple operating parameters on overall pollutant emission characteristics has not been systematically elucidated. A user-defined function was developed to implement the flue gas recirculation (FGR) function, and numerical simulations were conducted on the hydrogen-enriched combustion coupled with FGR process in a 49 MW natural gas boiler with an excess air coefficient of 1.2. Based on the Taguchi experimental method, 16 cases were designed with different hydrogen blending ratios (
XH2 = 0-0.3), flue gas recirculation rates (
RFGR = 0-0.15), and fuel preheating temperatures (
Tp = 300 K-600 K) to investigate the effects of these variables on the emissions of different pollutants, namely NO
x, CO, and CO
2. The entropy weight method was used to propose a novel multi-objective comprehensive evaluation index (MEI) for pollutant emissions from hydrogen-enriched combustion. Further, signal-to-noise ratio analysis was performed to optimize the combustion boundary conditions with MEI as the objective. The results show that among the 16 cases, for single-pollutant objectives, the combination achieving the lowest NO
x emission is
XH2=0.2,、
RFGR=0.15、
Tp=400 K; the lowest CO emission is achieved at
XH2=0.3、
RFGR=0.15、
Tp=600 K; and the lowest CO
2 emission is achieved at
XH2=0.2、
RFGR=0.15、
Tp=600 K. The mathematical expression of the multi-objective comprehensive evaluation index MEI is MEI=0.39E
NOx+ 0.32E
CO+ 0.29E
CO2. Under multi-objective optimization, the optimal MEI value is 1.102, which is 10.42% higher than the maximum value achieved under single-objective optimization. The corresponding optimal combination is
XH2=0.2、
RFGR=0.15、
Tp=600 K, achieving the lowest emissions with a NO
x concentration of 12 mg/m
3, CO concentration of 6 mg/m
3, and CO
2 volume fraction of 5.31%. The results can provide new insights for the development of multi-pollutant control strategies in hydrogen-enriched combustion of gas-fired boilers.