Experimental and numerical investigation on the performance of meso-scale burners with novel ordered porous media

Porous media have been shown to improve combustion stability and enhance heat transfer in meso-scale burners, while there is still a lack of knowledge about the quantitative relationship between the structure parameters and the combustion process. In this paper, ordered porous ceramics with accurate structural parameters are used, and the effects of porous ceramics and pore size on the stability limit, thermal performance, and emission performance of meso-scale burners are investigated experimentally and numerically. The results show that the heat exchange between the combustion gas and the burner wall is enhanced by the ordered porous ceramics, and the wall radiation efficiency reaches 0.513. The porous media with a smaller pore size, that is, a larger convective heat transfer coefficient, leads to an increase in the convective heat transfer from the porous media to the gas near the wall, thereby increasing the radiation efficiency of the burner wall. The effect of porous media on reducing NOx emissions is more significant at higher thermal power. In summary, ordered porous ceramics with Kelvin cells show an outstanding ability to enhance heat transfer, which is attractive for micro thermoelectric and thermophotovoltaic systems.