Disposal of waste oil using it as turbine fuel.

[lewtam]

Hypothetical question that occurred to me while I was discussing our problems about waste oil disposal with management.

I haven't been near an industrial turbine in my career, but we did have one at university that we used for lab tests. It could run on anything that was flammable as long as you could get it into the combustion chamber at a sufficient rate.

Regulatory issues (EPA etc) aside, would there be any problem with using waste oil as a fuel - diluted with other hydrocarbons if necessary? I envisage a small injection of the waste oil (say 2-5% by mass) into a standard natural gas fueled turbine.

Apologies for not having done ANY research before posting.

LewTam Inc.
Petrophysicist, Leading Hand, Natural Horseman, Prickle Farmer, Crack Shot, Venerable Yogi.

 

[toothless]

You'd have to have fuel nozzles designed for that fuel.

To burn oil, you'd have to pump it up to a pretty high pressure and inject it with an atomizing nozzle to get plenty of surface area.

The OEM of the turbine could give you details on what it would take to convert a turbine to dual-fuel.

 

[irishal]

You could most probably add the waste oil to the fuel oil, but I doubt if this mix would comply with the OEM fuel spec for the machine. And if the machine is under warranty or some sort of long term service agreement then you could find yourself out a lot of money if something goes wrong and they find out.

 

[rmw]

Depends on your waste oil and what it has in it. Lots of waste oil contain contaminates that could have a detrimental effect on various aspects of many hot gas path components.

I'd check with your CT OEM and get their blessing before proceeding.

rmw

 

[TurbineDoctor]

I have had experience with a client who added transformer oil to No. 2 distillate to burn within an MS5001P GE gas turbine. The results were not good. Specifically, wound up with SIGNIFICANT deposits of calcium carbonate inside of the the combustion liners, combustion transition pieces, and the 1st stage turbine nozzle. Would NOT recommend this "cost cutting" strategy since you do NOT know what is going to plate out inside of the gas turbine.
Another point, in agreement with rmw, is that there could well be heavy metals such as sodium, lead, vanadium, cadmium, etc. which would lead to Liquid Metal Embrittlement of the Hot Gas Path components.

 

[rmw]

TurbineDoctor,

I was thinking more of the heavy metals problem and never even considered calcium carbonate as an issue.

rmw

 

[TurbineDoctor]

RMW, the deposition was so heavy on the Stage 1 Nozzle that it changed the throat dimension between partitions.

 

[abeltio]

the gigo principle applies: garbage in, garbage out.
all OEM's specify fuel contaminants... if the analysis of the intended fuel falls outside the manufacturer's recommendations... the warranty is void and all sorts of bad things happen.

saludos.
a.