Our research studies magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) power generation for oxy-fuel based carbon capture. You can find our recent paper studying the electrical resistance of our MHD channel here:

Resistance Measurements of a High-velocity Oxy-fuel Powered MHD Channel

About MHD power generation

A MHD generator is an electric generator without moving parts. Because of the lack of moving parts, MHD generators can run at high temperatures. The high temperatures enables higher efficiency, but most importantly oxy-fuel based carbon capture. However, the lack of moving parts also introduces formidable engineering challenges. The goal of the MHD group is to reexamine the prospect of overcoming these challenges with modern scientific insights and technology.

At NETL we study MHD power generation with a high-velociy oxy-fuel combustion system. Below you can see a video of the oxy-fuel system turning on. The plots show data for the fuel flow (kerosene) and oxygen flow into the system, along with the pressure in the combusiton chamber. Part of this work has been the development of a custom data acquition framework that can scale to simultaneously acquire data from a diverse array of sensors.

Advanced diagnostics

We hope to use new experimental technology, paried with historical knowledge, to determine pathways that can overcome the engieering challenges associated with MHD power generation. For example, we have recently developed a real-time absorption-emission setup to monitor real time potassium number density in the oxy-fuel free jet. You can see a video below where the potassium spectral lines on the right are fit with a model to observe the rising potassium concentration at the exit of the torch as the potassium seeding is turned on.