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Hybrid turbine
exhaust gas from gas turbine vaporises fuel which powers a 'steam' turbine before entering combustion chamber.
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The purpose of this is to increase the effective yield of energy from bioethanol.

If lower strength alcohols can be burned then less energy needs to be consumed in distilling the bioethanol.

Gas turbines are able to burn lower concentrations of alcohol more easily than reciprocating engines. I think this is because they only need to initiate ignition once (though dont quote me on this).

However small gas turbines are not that efficient.

The engine works as follows (I'm guessing a bit at the alcohol concentration):

A gaseous mixture of steam and alcohol vapour is injected into a gas turbine combustion chamber(perhaps 30-40%). The exhaust gas passes through a heat exchanger. This preheats the liquid hydrated alcohol fuel. This fuel turns to gas and is passed through a steam turbine before being dumped into the combustion chamber.

The alternative is to pipe the vaporised fuel directly into the gas turbine and skip the steam turbine altogether. I'm not sure which would make more sense.

humanzee, Feb 09 2007


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       Sounds kinda similar to the concept behind Smokey Yunicks hot vapor engine (50-80 MPG out of a 250 HP 4 cyl in the late 70's or so), except his was for regular internal combusion. The vaporization of the fuel and intake air allowed for more complete combustion and a superchagind effect from the expansion of the gas. I'm not too well versed in turbine engines, but it seems like something of this nature would work. Any waste heat that can be recovered to make more power seems to be a step in the right direction. Preliminary bun untill someone proves it wont help any.
Hunter79764, Feb 09 2007
   

       Usually with a gas turbine to increase efficiency they run the exhaust gas through a heat converter and run a small steam turbine off of that.   

       This sounds similar to your plan   

       And with alcohol fuel it burns vary well and vary fast. Witch is its advantage in turbines because turbines are made to run at vary high rpm.
dev45, Feb 09 2007
   

       Just hoping this might improve the energy balance of bioethanol by allowing the use of such a dilute alcohol fuel.
humanzee, Feb 09 2007
   


 
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