Fuel 88 (2009) 657662

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

Industrial gas turbine combustion performance test of DME

to use as an alternative fuel for power generation
Min Chul Lee *, Seok Bin Seo, Jae Hwa Chung, Yong Jin Joo, Dal Hong Ahn
Power Generation Laboratory, Korea Electric Power Research Institute, Korea Electric Power Corporation, Yusung-Gu, Taejeon 305-380, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 6 May 2008
Received in revised form 15 October 2008
Accepted 16 October 2008
Available online 12 November 2008
Keywords:
DME (dimethyl ether)
Alternative fuel
Gas turbine
Combustion performance test

a b s t r a c t
DME (dimethyl ether, CH3OCH3) is both a good alternative fuel for transportation and power generation
and an LPG substitute owing to its cleanliness, multi-source productivity and the ease with which it is
transported. This study was conducted to verify whether DME is a good fuel for gas turbines and to identify potential problems in fuelling a commercial gas turbine with DME. In this study, the GE7EA gas turbine of the Pyong-tak power plant in Korea was selected as the target of DME application. Combustion
performance tests were conducted by comparing DME with methane, which is a major component of natural gas. Most results of the combustion performance tests show that DME is very clean and efcient fuel
for gas turbines. However, other results have shown that it is necessary to retrot a fuel nozzle to the
combustor in consideration of the combustion properties of DME in order to enhance the availability
and reliability of DME red gas turbines.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
1.1. Background
Many studies have been conducted on the production and utilization of DME, which these days is being formed as a candidate for
a clean fuel with the potential to resolve currently signicant problems such as the lack of fossil fuels and the need for environmental
protection. DME has high potential for commercialization in the
coming years, taking into account the following facts. First of all,
it is convenient to store and transport, since its boiling point is
higher than that of LNG (liqueed natural gas). In addition, it generates a lesser amount of toxic exhaust gases because there is no
carbon to carbon bond in DME molecular, which means that it does
not tend to form soot particle, and DME is an adjustable fuel for a
lean premixed pre-vaporized gas turbine. Furthermore, as shown
in Table 1, its physical and chemical properties are similar to those
of LPG (liqueed petroleum gas) which is comprised with propane
and butane, so it can be utilized with the existing LPG infrastructure. One essential prerequisite is the existence of a large number
of consumers of DME, such as thermal power plants, if its mass
production is to go ahead. In addition to these necessities, this
study was conducted after establishing the ultimate objectives of
the diversication of fuels for power generation, the reduction of
the cost of power generation, and the decrease of toxic exhaust
gases. The GE7EA gas turbine of the Pyong-tak thermal power plant
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 42 865 5382; fax: +82 42 865 5497.
E-mail addresses: LMC@kepri.re.kr, leeminchul@kaist.ac.kr (M.C. Lee).
0016-2361/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2008.10.027

in the Republic of Korea was selected for the application of DME as

a fuel source. A series of combustion tests was carried out on the
model combustor of the GE7EA gas turbine by utilizing the
60 kW scale gas turbine combustion test.
1.2. Prior research on DME red gas turbines
Many studies on DME have been conducted in various elds,
particularly in terms of production, transportation, storage and utilization [14]. For this papery, a number of previous studies that
used DME for thermal power generation are reviewed. Hitachi of
Japan has developed a 25 MW scale DME burner, which is a full
size multi-cluster burner composed of coaxial jet cluster nozzle
burners [5]. In addition, the Tokyo Electric Power Company conducted a study on the application of DME to an LPG micro-gas turbine, and reported that it obtained equivalent or superior
operational performances with DME than with LPG [6]. Elsewhere,
General Electric conducted a combustion test on a mixed solution
of DME, methanol, and water by means of a bench-scale burner,
and reported that the mixture could be utilized in a commercialized gas turbine of its own; it then obtained a patent on the concentration and usage range of the fuel mixture [7]. Iskender
Gokalps study group demonstrated the superior features and the
physical and chemical properties of DME as a fuel for gas turbines
[8]. However, since either the liquid combustion method or a limited measuring method was used in all of the foregoing studies, the
results are quite decient in terms of acquiring a comprehensive
understanding of the combustion performances of DME. We at
KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Corporation) previously studied the

658

M.C. Lee et al. / Fuel 88 (2009) 657662

Nomenclature
DME
LNG
LPG
Tn
Td
Tex

dimethyl ether
liqueed natural gas
liqueed petroleum gas
fuel nozzle temperature
dump plane temperature of the combustion chamber
temperature of exit gas from the combustion chamber

P0rms
ppm
/
LHV
TIT

root mean square value of dynamic pressures in the

combustion chamber
parts per million
equivalence ratio
lower heating value
turbine inlet temperature

Table 1
Properties of DME, methane, propane, and butane.
Property

Unit

DME

Methane

Propane

Butane

Chemical formula
Boiling point
Liquid density
Specic gravity (vs. air)
Vapor pressure at 0 C
Flammable limits in air
Ignition temperature
Max. burning velocity
Stoichiometric air/fuel ratio
Lower heating value

C
g/cm3

atm
%
C
cm/s
kg/kg
MJ/kg

CH3OCH3
25.1
0.67
1.59
6.1
3.417
235
50
9.0
28.8

CH4
161.5
0.42
0.55
246
515
650
37
16.9
49.0

C3H8
42
0.49
1.52
9.3
2.19.4
470
43
15.7
46.3

C4H10
0.5
0.57
2.01
2.4
1.98.4
365
43
15.5
45.7

characteristics of DME gas turbine combustion by visualizing the

ame of a bench-scale combustor [9]. In this study, in a continuation of previous basic studies, a combustion performance test was
conducted on a commercial gas turbine (the MS7EA gas turbine of
the GE Energy Company) using DME as an alternative fuel for
power generation.
2. Description of the combustion test facility

DME and methane was installed for the purposes of this study.
As shown in Fig. 1, an air compressor, an air storage tank, an air
heater, and air supply lines for cooling and combustion were built
in the gas turbine combustion test facility. In addition, the whole
system incorporated a DME storage tank, a DME vaporizer, DME
pre-heating lines, fuel supply lines, a ow meter and controllers,
water sprayers for cooling exhaust gases, atmospheric pressure
burners, control systems, and an outer stack.

2.1. Gas turbine combustion test facility

2.2. Model gas turbine combustor

A 60 kW scale gas turbine combustion test facility capable of

supplying air of 0.2 kg/s at 400 C with a fuel supply system for

A GE7EA gas turbine (model name: MS-7001EA; output:

87 MW; efciency based on LHV: 30%) of the GE Company is com-

Fig. 1. About 60 kW scale gas turbine combustion test facility.

M.C. Lee et al. / Fuel 88 (2009) 657662

Table 2
Main geometry of M1-combustor.

659

3. Test methods and results

Nomenclature

Description

M1-combustor (mm)

D1
D2
D3
D4
D5
D6
D7
D8
D9
D10
L1

Diameter of distillate oil fuel hole

Inner diameter of atomizing air hole
Outer diameter of atomizing air hole
Inner diameter of DeNOx water hole
Outer diameter of DeNOx water hole
Inner diameter of combustion air hole
Outer diameter of combustion air hole
Fuel nozzle head diameter
Diameter of main fuel injection hole
Inner diameter of combustion chamber
Length of combustion chamber

3.2
2.97
5.5
8.9
11.4
30
53.5
76.3
2.5
190
900

posed of ten combustion chambers in a circle and adopts a combustion system of the multi-can annular type. In this test, the model combustor of a GE7EA gas turbine (M1-combustor) was
designed and manufactured by scaling down one of the ten combustors for this test. Table 2 shows the dimensions of the main
parts of the M1-combustor, while its conguration is shown in
Figs. 2a and 2b. The dynamic pressures of the combustion chamber,
and the concentration and temperature at the ame and liner of
the combustor were measured individually in order to help diagnose combustion performances.

Fig. 2a. Drawing of M1-combustor fuel nozzle.

Fig. 2b. Magnied drawing of core section in (a).

In this study combustion tests were conducted in order to analyze and predict various combustion phenomena when DME is
fueled to the GE7EA gas turbine combustor, whose main fuel is
normally natural gas. Both fuels were supplied at ambient temperature and the combustion air was supplied to the combustor at the
conditions of atmospheric pressure, 400 C temperature and
0.15 kg/s mass ow rate. The dynamic pressures caused by combustion oscillations, NOx, CO, and the temperature at several points
of the combustion chamber were observed while changing the heat
inputs and pilot fuel quantities at a constant air supply. The dynamic pressures caused by combustion vibrations were measured
at the rate of 50,000/s, their RMS (root mean square) values were
calculated in order to investigate the vibration characteristics,
and the ten-plus data of NOx, CO, and temperatures were measured, respectively, in the steady-state of each experimental condition and then averaged.

3.1. Temperature characteristics

The temperatures at the fuel nozzle (Tn), the dump plane (Td)
and the outlet (Tex) of the combustion chamber were measured,
as shown in Fig. 3.
As shown in Fig. 4, the temperature proles of the fuel nozzles
demonstrate that the nozzle temperature tends to decrease as the
fuel heat input increases, which could be analyzed as a phenomenon whereby the ame lengthen in the ow direction due to an increase in fuel ow. Furthermore, this phenomenon has another
reason that the convective heat transfer in fuel nozzle increase,
which is caused by convectional heat transfer with a greater
amount of fuel owing. Moreover, (Td) and (Tex), which are plotted
in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively, show a trend whereby the temperature increases proportionally as the amount of heat input increases, which reects the results of the increase in ame
temperature and the quantity of heat generation caused by an increase in total heat input.
The temperatures of methane are higher than those of DME,
with the exception of the temperature at the fuel nozzles, which
appears to stem from the difference between the shape of the
ame of DME and that of methane, as shown in Fig. 7. DME burns
nearer to the fuel nozzle than methane because of the higher turbulent burning velocity which can be derived the laminar burning
velocity of both fuels as shown in Table 1. Turbulent burning velocity of methane and DME, which is simply derived from Damkhler
equation [10] by substituting laminar burning velocity and turbulent intensity, is 167 cm/s and 176 cm/s, respectively. On top of
that, to get same heat input for both fuels, the fuel injection velocity of DME is same as just 60% of the methane fuel injection velocity and this fact can be raised as another reason why DME burn
nearer to the nozzle than methane. Thus, we can conclude the effect of fuel injection velocity is more signicant as a reason of
ame shape difference of DME and methane rather than turbulent
burning velocity because the turbulent burning velocity of both
fuel is almost same. In addition, the ame length of DME becomes
longer because of its higher molecular weight and, therefore, greater momentum; whereas for methane the ame spreads more in the
radial direction in the form of a half moon [11,12]. In other words,
methane is lighter than DME in terms of its molecular weight, so
the methane ames may be affected more by the ow elds and
more easily mixed with the air. Otherwise, DME has a higher
momentum, so the DME ames tend to lengthen further still rather
than re-circulate on the dump plane.
The temperature characteristics on the dump plane, located at
(Td) as shown in Fig. 3, were analyzed in Fig. 5. The temperatures

660

M.C. Lee et al. / Fuel 88 (2009) 657662

Fig. 3. Drawing of M1-combustor test rig.

355

900

Temp_nozzle_CH4
Temp_nozzle_DME

350

Temp_ex_CH4
Temp_ex_DME

850

Temperature [ C]

340

800

Temperature [ C]

345

335
330
325

750
700
650

320
315

600

310
35

40

45

50

55

60

Heat Input [kW]

35

40

45

50

55

60

Heat Input [kW]

Fig. 4. Fuel nozzle temperature characteristics for DME and methane.

Fig. 6. Combustion chamber exit gas temperature characteristics for DME and
methane.

Temp_dump_CH4
Temp_dump_DME

950

Temperature [ C]

900
850
800
750
700
650
600
35

40

45

50

55

60

Heat Input [kW]

Fig. 5. Dump plane temperature characteristics for DME and methane.

of DME are lower by 50100 C than those of methane. This result

conforms well enough with such a characteristic as the DME ame
being formed farther from the dump plane, since DME is heavier
than methane; and for both DME and methane, the dump plane
temperatures increase in proportion to the increase in heat input
and ame temperature as a function of the increase in load.

Fig. 7. Direct photos of DME and methane ame.

The temperatures measured on the combustion chamber outlet

are plotted in Fig. 6. The temperatures of DME are lower by 50
100 C than those of methane, and after analysis it could be determined that the output temperatures decrease by a greater amount
of heat loss through the combustion chamber walls, since the
ames lengthen in the ow direction, which is signicant in that
the combustion chamber outlet temperature in an industrial gas
turbine plant is very similar to the turbine inlet temperature
(TIT) through which the gas turbine output is controlled. The fact
that a turbine inlet temperature decreases when converting fuels

661

M.C. Lee et al. / Fuel 88 (2009) 657662

NOx_CH4
NOx_DME

40

NOx @ 15%O2 [ppm]

0.5

P'_rms [psi]

45

P'_rms_CH4
P'_rms_DME

0.6

0.4

0.3

0.2

35

30

25

20

0.1

15

0.0
35

40

45

50

55

60

Heat Input [kW]

35

40

45

50

55

60

Heat Input [kW]

Fig. 8. Combustion instability characteristics of DME and methane.

Fig. 10. NOx emission of DME and methane.

implies that it will be possible to produce a greater amount of output accordingly, so the results should be positively investigated
upon fuel conversion.
3.2. Combustion oscillation characteristics
The combustion oscillation characteristics of methane and DME
were analyzed and compared in Fig. 8. The pressure uctuation of
DME is higher than that of methane, which means that the ame
conguration of DME is eager to interact between the heat releases
and pressure uctuations because DME burns near to the fuel nozzle as shown in Fig. 7 [13,14]. However, that might not matter very
much for stable operations because the values are 2 psi lower than
the regulated value of the combustion vibrations for an industrial
gas turbine.
3.3. CO exhaustion characteristics
The CO and NOx emission characteristics upon combustion of
methane and DME were analyzed and compared in Figs. 9 and
10. For methane, CO concentrations in the exhaust are lower than
3 ppm and the combustion efciencies are greater than 99.9% over
the whole experimental range. On the other hand, CO concentrations of DME vary from approximately 18 ppm at a low load to
20

CO_CH4
CO_DME

CO @ 15%O2 [ppm]

16

12

0
35

40

45

50

55

Heat Input [kW]

Fig. 9. CO emission of DME and methane.

60

approximately 3.5 ppm at a high load. When DME is applied to

the existing GE7EA combustor of natural gas without any modication, it is estimated that not only will combustion efciency deteriorate but also the amount of toxic gas exhaust will increase. This
suggests that we should optimize the combustion conditions by
modifying the commercial combustor for natural gas in order to
use DME as a fuel.
3.4. NOx exhaustion characteristics
It was conrmed that the NOx emission characteristics of DME
were almost equivalent to, but somewhat lower than, those of
methane (see Fig. 10). For both DME and methane, it is demonstrated that the amount of NOx emissions increases exponentially
according to the increase of ame temperature and the equivalence ratio at a high load, which can be easily explained by the fact
that the reaction velocity in the Zeldovich mechanism, which is a
thermal NOx generation mechanism, is an exponential function
of temperature [15].
4. Conclusion
A series of combustion performance tests in the M1-combustor
was successfully carried out, the results of which may be summarized as the following:
(1) Unlike the other studies that are mentioned in chapter 1.2,
ash back phenomena were not observed to occur, because
the GE7EA gas turbine uses the partially premixed combustion method which is very diffusive-like [16], which means
that the GE7EA machine is highly suited to DME fuel.
(2) However, it will be necessary to retrot a combustor to
enhance combustion efciency and decrease the CO emissions when DME is adapted to the GE7EA gas turbine, which
mainly res natural gas.
(3) As a conclusion to this study, DME can be applied to the
GE7EA gas turbine with only a small modication, and it is
expected to ensure clean and stable operation upon
application.

Acknowledgement
We are pleased to acknowledge that this study has been carried
out as a project of the New and Renewable Energy Technology

662

M.C. Lee et al. / Fuel 88 (2009) 657662

Development with nancial support from the Korea Ministry of

Knowledge Economy.
References
[1] Semelsberger TA, Borup RL, Greene HL. Dimethyl ether as an alternative fuel. J
Power Source 2006;156:497511.
[2] Arcoumanis C, Bae C, Crookes R, Kinoshita E. The potential of dimethyl ether
(DME) as an alternative fuel for compression-ignition engines: a review. Fuel
2008;87:101430.
[3] Song J, Huang Z, Qiao X, Wang W. Performance of a controllable premixed
combustion engine fueled with dimethyl ether. Energy Conversion Manage
2004;45:222332.
[4] Cocco D, Tola V, Cau G. Performance evaluation of chemically recuperated gas
turbine (CRGT) power plants fuelled by DME. Energy 2005;31:114658.
[5] Kobayashi N, Inoue H, Koizumi H. Robust design of the coaxial jet cluster
nozzle burner for DME fuel. Proc ASME Turbo EXPO 2003;GT2003:38410.
[6] Tsuchiya T, Okamoto M. Evaluation and demonstration of DME as an
alternative fuel for micro-gas turbines. Proc Asian Cong Gas Turbine
2005;ACGT2005:066.
[7] Basu A, Gradassi M, Sills R, Fleisch T, Puri R. Use of DME as a gas turbine fuel.
Proc ASME Turbo EXPO 2001;GT2001:0003.

[8] Gkalp I, Lebas E. Alternative fuels for industrial gas turbines (AFTUR). Appl
Therm Eng 2004;24:165563.
[9] Lee MC, Seo SB, Chung JW, Joo YJ, Ahn DH. Combustion performance test of a
new fuel DME to adapt to a gas turbine for power generation. Fuel
2008;87:21627.
[10] Stephen R. Turns. An introduction to combustion. USA: McGraw-Hill; 1999. p.
42638.
[11] Daly CA, Simmie JM, Wrmel J, Djeba N, Paillard C. Burning velocities of
dimethyl ether and air. Combust Flame 2001;125:132940.
[12] Zhao Z, Kazakov A, Dryer FL. Measurements of dimethyl ether/air mixture
burning velocities by using particle image velocimetry. Combust Flame
2004;139:5260.
[13] Lieuwen T, Torres H, Johnson C, Zinn BT. A mechanism of combustion
instability in lean premixed gas turbine combustors. J Eng Gas Turbine Power
2001;123:1829.
[14] Lee JG, Santavicca DA. Experimental diagnostics for the study of combustion
instabilities in lean premixed combustors. J Propulsion Power
2003;19:73550.
[15] Warnatz J, Maas U, Dibble RW. Combustion. 2nd ed. Germany: Springer; 1999.
p. 21931.
[16] Chen Z, Qin X, Ju Y, Zhao Z, Chaos M, Dryer FL. High temperature ignition and
combustion enhancement by dimethyl ether addition to methaneair
mixtures. Proc Comb Inst 2007;1:121522.