Institute of Combustion Technology
The DLR Institute of Combustion Technology develops solutions to make both energy supply and aviation climate-friendly. To this end, we are further developing regeneratively produced fuels and innovative combustion chamber systems for gas and aircraft turbines.
With its exceptional infrastructure of optically accessible combustion chamber test rigs and chemical laboratories, the institute is well equipped for the task of analysing elementary combustion processes under real conditions and understanding them in detail. Thanks to its expertise in the fields of chemical kinetics and analytics, flow and combustion simulation, combustion diagnostics and combustion chamber development as well as in the area of sustainable fuels and micro gas turbine systems, researchers can analyse, develop and evaluate chemical energy sources, technical combustion processes and gas turbine cycles from the basics through to applications. The example of soot formation shows how application-orientated research and basic research complement each other perfectly - both areas work hand in hand to achieve a maximum reduction in emissions.
The more than 100 researchers not only develop new technologies, but also bring them to market maturity in co-operation with industrial partners. One example of this are the jet-stabilised burner concepts developed here, which are characterised by extremely low pollutant emissions and fuel flexibility. These strengths are particularly evident in the combustion of hydrogen mixtures and pure hydrogen. They are already being used successfully in large stationary gas turbines and in micro gas turbines. Micro gas turbines are used in particular for decentralised energy supply. For this application, a combustion chamber system has been brought to market maturity that works effectively with both currently available fuels and alternative fuels such as biogases and hydrogen.
We have bundled our expertise in the field of fuel characterisation and fuel design in the SimFuel platform tool, which we use to support industrial companies in the development of new fuels that are both more efficient and burn with fewer pollutants.
Another example of our ambitions in the area of technology transfer is the construction of the technology platform for power-to-liquid fuels (TPP) at the Leuna Chemical Park (Saxony-Anhalt). This semi-industrial plant is designed to solve all the problems that arise from upscaling production from the laboratory. The institute is thus helping to pave the way for sustainably produced power-to-liquid fuels.
Our mission in brief
With our research, we are helping to make the energy supply and mobility of tomorrow sustainable, safe and reliable. In doing so, we are guided by the vision of making combustion not only more efficient, but above all as clean as possible. To achieve this, we start at several points: We develop and analyse new chemical energy sources for applications ranging from energy storage to aviation, and design them specifically to make them more climate-friendly. At the same time, we are optimising combustion chambers for pollutant-free combustion as well as power plant and drive systems under the changed conditions of an energy system based on renewable energies.