Hydrogen-Oxygen Fired Gas Turbine

Hydrogen and Oxygen as the can be obtained from the splitting of water present an ideal fuel with respect to environmental conditions. The idea is to have solar plants in distant areas of the world and to collect from there the reaction partners hydrogen and oxygen which would serve as the fuel for gas turbine plants in densely populated areas. Thus it would be possible to operate a thermal power station without any emissions. The Institute for Thermal Turbomachinery and Machine Dynamics is concerned with this problem for more than ten years. In 1989 a first paper was presented concerning peak power production from stored hydrogen and oxygen. In 1985 a new process was presented which operates a gas turbine type turbomachine with hydrogen and oxygen fuel. From the combustion of these partners it follows that the whole cycle fluid is H20 (water or steam) in single cycle from the combustion chamber down to the condensor. This proposal is still a major research project of our institute and has gained important international recognition. Several proposals have been presented to diverse conferences concerned with hydrogen. Our cycle proposal has been named Graz cycle and has been lately expanded to include the use of fuel cells.