Francesco Contino

• Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering
• Professor at Catholic University of Louvain

Small concentrations of very reactive chemical species such as nitric oxide (NO) have a very important impact on the onset of combustion. In engine applications, this may lead to irregular combustion phenomena in spark ignition engines or contribute to the control of the homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engines. To numerically analyze...

Multi-dimensional models represent today consolidated tools to simulate the combustion process in HCCI and Diesel engines. Various approaches are available for this purpose, it is however widely accepted that detailed chemistry represents a fundamental prerequisite to obtain satisfactory results when the engine runs with complex injection strategie...

Using detailed mechanisms to include chemical kinetics in computational fluid dynamics simulations is required for many combustion applications, yet the resulting computational cost is often extremely prohibitive. In order to reduce the resources dedicated to this stage, we investigated the coupling of the dynamic adaptive chemistry (DAC) reduction...

Disruptions in energy imports, backlash in social acceptance, and novel technologies failing to develop are unexpected events that are often overlooked in energy planning, despite their ability to jeopardize the energy transition. We propose a method to explore unexpected events and assess their impact on the transition pathway of a large-scale who...

In this study, we operated and characterized a micro-scale ORC (< 1 kWe) in off-design conditions and mapped its performance at part load to assess its potential in a domestic, low temperature (< 100°C), Carnot battery.

The current centralized configuration of the ammonia industry makes the production of nitrogen fertilizers susceptible to the volatility of fossil fuel prices and involves complex supply chains with long-distance transport costs. An alternative consists of on-site decentralized ammonia production using small modular technologies, such as electric H...

In pursuit of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the European Union plans to annually import ten million tonnes of renewable hydrogen. While the economic viability of hydrogen importation is established, environmental assessments are limited to comparisons and lack an evaluation of absolute sustainability. Therefore, we conducted a multi-objective...

Micro Gas Turbines (mGT) have not yet succeeded in conquering the small-scale combined heat and power (CHP) market. One reason is that their electrical efficiency is not high enough to maintain a cost-effective operation. A two-shaft intercooled mGT has the potential to meet the current market demand. This technology maintains a high electrical eff...

Thermally integrated pumped thermal energy storage (TI-PTES) is a flexibility option to recover lowgrade heat (i.e. < 100°C) and to provide overnight storage. Common criteria when optimising such system are the power-to-power efficiency (i.e. electricity recovery), the total exergy efficiency (i.e. combined heat and electricity recovery) and the en...

The transition towards sustainable energy systems requires innovative solutions for energy storage and conversion. Among these, Carnot batteries are emerging as a promising technology for integrating variable renewable energy sources into the electrical grid and for coupling heat and electricity. They operate on the basic principles of thermodynami...

The modeling of chemical kinetics holds many challenges, as well as a necessity for more efficient modeling techniques, together with dimensionality reduction techniques. This work studies the application of time-lag auto-encoders for the analysis of combustion chemistry kinetics. Such a technique allows a better reconstruction of the thermochemica...

The demand for efficient, cost-effective, and low-emission decentralized electricity and heat production is rapidly increasing. Micro Gas Turbines (mGT) have not yet succeeded in conquering the small-scale combined heat and power (CHP) market. The main reason is that their electrical efficiency is not high enough to maintain a cost-effective operat...

The production of ammonia as a precursor to nitrogen fertilizers contributes to about 1% of global CO2 emissions and consumes about 2% of global energy. Current ammonia and fertilizers production is centralized in large facilities, from which fertilizers are then transported to croplands, and use fossil fuels as a feedstock for the Haber-Bosch proc...

Proposals for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 include scaling-up electrolytic hydrogen production, however, this poses technical, economic, and environmental challenges. One such challenge is for policymakers to ensure a sustainable future for the environment including freshwater and land resources while facilitating low-carbon hydrogen produc...

To achieve sustainability, it is essential that all sustainable development goals (SDGs) receive adequate funding and that their interlinkages are supported in proposals. We use an artificial-intelligence-based approach to survey funding proposals in the European Union and the United States. We reveal that while some SDGs are widely covered by rese...

Despite the considerable uncertainty in predicting critical parameters of renewable energy systems, the uncertainty during system design is often marginally addressed and consistently underestimated. Therefore, the resulting designs are fragile, with suboptimal performances when reality deviates significantly from the predicted scenarios. To addres...

Regions with abundantly available renewable energy are not necessarily the same as those with a high population density and energy consumption. Therefore, renewable energy can be produced in optimal climate conditions with a remote renewable hub and transported to these population-dense regions. To establish this energy transport to these regions,...

Traditionally, small to medium size (less than 10 MW), cogeneration based on biomass traditionally involves a downdraft gasifier coupled with an internal combustion engine [1]. One of the main difficulties in these power and heat units involving a gasifier and an internal combustion engine is the added cost and complexity of the syngas conditioning...

Scale up of electrolytic production of hydrogen has been proposed as key to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. This poses technical, economic, and environmental challenges. One challenge concerns the use of wind and solar resources to power water electrolyzers for low-carbon hydrogen production, which results in additional demand for already sca...

Studying a large number of scenarios is necessary to consider the uncertainty inherent to the energy transition. In addition, the integration of intermittent renewable energy sources requires complex energy system models. Typical days clustering is a commonly used technique to ensure the computational tractability of energy system optimisation mode...

Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies are gaining interest in the concept of carbon utilization and Power-toGas (PtG), as the economic valorization of the CO2 into methane provides a viable pathway to allow DAC systems to mature. However, research on DAC mainly focuses on isolated systems, and the system performance depends on parameters that are h...

Conventional centralized power generation is increasingly transforming into a more distributed structure. The periodic power production that is created by the renewable production unit generates the need for small-scale heat and power units. One of the promising technologies which can assist flexible power grid is micro Gas Turbines (mGTs). Such en...

Planning the defossilization of energy systems while maintaining access to abundant primary energy resources is a non-trivial multi-objective problem encompassing economic, technical, environmental, and social aspects. However, most long-term policies consider the cost of the system as the leading indicator in the energy system models to decrease t...

The complexity of bottom-up energy system models has progressively grown to enhance the representativeness of the system under analysis. Among them, whole-energy system models aim at representing the energy resources, conversion technologies, and energy demands of regions (i.e., a country) in its entirety. Despite this effort leading to an increase...

To overcome the major challenge of reactive flow simulation for chemical kinetics dominated flame dynamics in supersonic combustion, on-the-fly mechanism reduction for high fidelity simulation of scramjet becomes mandatory. For dynamic adaptive chemistry (DAC) methodology, there are three major factors controlling the accuracy and efficiency of the...

In an energy mix driven by renewables, there is a need for small-scale highly efficient and flexible cogeneration units, such as Micro Gas Turbines (mGTs). These mGTs should perform transient operations and work at part-load to meet the power grid requirements. Therefore, full transient characterisation is necessary. One of the most crucial factors...

Climate change is a constant call for the massive deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind. However, to cover the energy demand at all times, these sources require energy storage over more extended periods. In this framework, renewable energy storage in the form of hydrogen is gaining ground on leading the transit...

Ammonia can be an essential energy vector for storing excess renewable energy during the year and release this energy when demand is high. This storage during the year provides an essential part in the energy sector for moments when there is not enough wind and sun to cover the demand. Although the Haber-Bosch is a very mature process to synthesize...

Planning the defossilization of energy systems by facilitating high penetration of renewables and maintaining access to abundant and affordable primary energy resources is a nontrivial multi-objective problem encompassing economic, technical, environmental, and social aspects. However, so far, most long-term policies to decrease the carbon footprin...

Moderate or Intense Lowoxygen Dilution (MILD) combustion has become increasingly important as it ensures high combustion efficiency with low pollutant emissions. However, modelling this regime is much more difficult than for conventional flames due to the strong coupling between turbulent mixing and chemical kinetics. The use of detailed chemistry...

Ongoing work presented at the "Journées d’Etudes" of the Belgian Section: Combustion Institute held at Ghent University (March, 2022)

Measuring the Research Octane Number (ron) and the Motor Octane Number (mon) at a low price is currently not feasible, thus making the use of predictive methods essential to accomplish this task. Nevertheless, the latter rely on expensive data and linear by volume models cannot be applied for complex fuels. In this work, we have investigated 41 par...

Heavy-duty transport represents nearly 6% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. Renewable hydrogen is a potential option to decarbonize heavy-duty transport, such as buses. Renewable hydrogen for buses promises excellent environmental performance, at the expense of a higher fuel cost, as opposed to a diesel-powered bus fleet. Despite the inher...

The recent COVID-19 pandemic outbreak affected our society greatly, offering a chance to rebuild and rethink our way of living. Energy, as a driving factor of everyday life faced an unprecedented shock. How big was this shock for both the economic and political levels? No consolidated study exists where both aspects are considered. To rethink our w...

Conventional implementation of slider-crank mechanisms result in high loads transmitted through the mechanical structure, inhibiting the design of compact and oil-free machines. Therefore, this research proposes to step away from the conventional, i.e. rotative, actuation and to investigate local linear actuation on the slider-component directly, w...

Combining photovoltaic arrays with batteries, heat pumps and thermal storage further decarbonizes the heating sector. When evaluating the performance of such systems, the parameters are either fixed, or based on generic ranges, or characterized by precise distributions inferred from limited information. These assumptions result in suboptimal design...

Wind and solar energies present a time and space disparity that generally leads to a mismatch between the demand and the supply. To harvest their maximum potentials, one of the main challenges is the storage and transport of these energies. This challenge can be tackled by electrofuels, such as hydrogen, methane, and methanol. They offer three main...

Waste heat recovery through cycle humidification is considered as an effective tool to increase the operational flexibility of micro Gas Turbines (mGTs) in cogeneration in a Decentralized Energy System (DES) context. Indeed, during periods with low heat demand, the excess thermal power can be reintroduced in the cycle under the form of heated water...

The combination of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) with Kriging has been shown to be a reliable choice for the development of Reduced-Order Models (ROMs) for the prediction of combustion data at unexplored operating conditions. In this study, POD is combined with Polynomial Chaos Expansion (PCE), with a combination of PCE and Kriging (PC-Krig...

The transition towards a sustainable energy sector depends on how we safely manage the transport and storage of energy to keep up with the demand. Large storage (TWh) of renewable energy can be accomplished by producing an energy carrier like ammonia. This power-to-ammonia production process overly depends on the stability of the ammonia reactor wh...

Dear Colleagues, the ongoing and well needed turn towards the sustainable management of energy sources has introduced a number of emerging technologies for energy generation with a promising outlook for the future. Among these, combustion still plays a major role in nearly all layers of society, from heat-intensive industrial processes, over waste...

This paper presents a process simulation model in Aspen Plus® and a techno-economic assessment for the anaerobic digestion of Cuban sugarcane vinasses considering three scenarios for biogas application: electricity production (S_1), biomethane as vehicle fuel (S_2), and biomethane for gas grid injection (S_3). From the simulation model, non-signifi...

Three portable dilution devices (a two-stage dilutor, a one-stage dilutor and an axial dilutor) and a stationary dilution tunnel were compared by employing them in an experimental setup for particle emission measurements from a 40 kW pellet boiler. Total concentrations and number size distributions of particles were detected by an ELPI + analyzer....

Traditional use of slider-crank mechanisms result in high loads transmitted through the mechanical structure, inhibiting the design of a compact machine. Therefore, this paper proposes to step away from the conventional, i.e. rotative, actuation and to investigate local linear actuation of the slider-component directly, while maintaining the kinema...

Air quality is a growing concern worldwide because of its impacts on both the environment and the human health. The road transport sector is a major contributor to this poor air quality. To reduce the emission of particulate matter, all diesel passenger cars were equipped with diesel particulate filters since the EURO5b emission standard. Unfortuna...

During renewable energy system design, parameters are generally fixed or characterized by a precise distribution. This leads to a representation that fails to distinguish between uncertainty related to natural variation (i.e. future, aleatory uncertainty) and uncertainty related to lack of data (i.e. present, epistemic uncertainty). Consequently, t...

Although the positive impact of cycle humidification on the performance of micro Gas Turbines (mGTs) has already been proven numerically and experimentally, very detailed modeling of the system performance remains challenging, especially the determination of the recuperator effectiveness, which has the highest impact on the final cycle performance....

To fully embrace its opportunities in future decentralized power production, the current mGT has to become more flexible in terms of operation, i.e. decoupling heat and power production. Cycle humidification during periods with low heat demand is a possible route to handle this issue. Indeed, cycle humidification has already been proven to increase...

Ammonia combustion appears as a meaningful way to retrieve stored amounts of excess variable renewable energy, and the spark-ignition (SI) engine has been proposed as a practical conversion system. The present work aims at elucidating the combustion characteristics of ammonia blends in engine-relevant turbulent conditions. To that end, laminar and...

Increasing the biodiesel content of diesel fuels is encouraged because of its reduced carbon footprint. Pure rapeseed methyl ester (RME)and used cooking oil methyl ester (UCOME) are characterised by well-to-tank greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions of 54% and 88% compared to pure B0 petrodiesel, respectively. Captive fleets such as public transport buse...

Conventional combustion has been exploited for power generation purposes since ancient times. Considering all relevant analyses of primary energy consumption, it is obvious that worldwide it will still play a major role in heat generation and will only slowly be replaced in generation of electricity. Despite unpreceded breakthroughs, growing capaci...

Cycle humidification applied to micro Gas Turbines (mGTs) offers a solution to overcome their limited operational flexibility in terms of variable electrical and thermal power production when used in a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) application. Although the positive impact of this cycle humidification on the performance has already been proven nume...

The paper presents a first comparative analysis of emission formation phenomena of three different bioliquids, derived from low-cost waste streams while utilizing the same gas turbine-based experimental setup. A consistent and unbiased comparison is ensured by the application of the same experimental test rig featuring only those minor fuel-based a...

Balancing of intermittent energy such as solar energy can be achieved by batteries and hydrogen-based storage. However, combining these systems received limited attention in a grid-connected framework and its design optimization is often performed assuming fixed parameters. Hence, such optimization induces designs highly sensitive to real-world unc...

The energy transition leads to the development of unconventional liquid fuels. Un-conventional liquid fuels are produced at a small scale so they are produced with a limited budget and they must be characterized at a cheap price. When liquid fuels are burned in piston engines, they are characterized by the Research Octane Number (RON) and the Motor...

Laminar flame speeds of ammonia with oxygen-enriched air (oxygen content varying from 21 to 30 vol.%) and ammonia-hydrogen-air mixtures (fuel hydrogen content varying from 0 to 30 vol.%) at elevated pressure (1–10 bar) and temperature (298–473 K) were determined experimentally using a constant volume combustion chamber. Moreover, ammonia laminar fl...

The interest in ammonia as a high-density hydrogen carrier for long-term electricity storage is growing. A clean and efficient Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system is envisioned for power production from stored ammonia, to which Homogeneous-Charge Compression-Ignition (HCCI) engines are promising. Although recent preliminary studies showed a high e...

The mitigation of climate change requires the increasing use of variable renewable energy sources. Energy storage and transport solutions will contribute to ensure the stability, reliability, and flexibility of the energy systems in that context. Ammonia is a well-known chemical of formula NH3 and, amongst other electrofuels, a promising energy car...

Improved management and impermeability of refrigerants is a leading solution to reverse global warming. Therefore, crank-driven reciprocating refrigerator compressors are gradually replaced by more efficient, oil-free and hermetic linear compressors. However, the design and operation of an electromagnetic actuator, fitted on the compression require...

The necessity of neutralizing the increase of the temperature of the atmosphere by the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide (CO2), as well as replacing fossil fuels, leads to a necessary energy transition that is already happening. This energy transition requires the deployment of renewable energies that will replace...

UASB reactors are accepted as a suitable technology for biogas production from the anaerobic digestion of vinasse. To describe correctly the behavior of this type of reactors the hydrodynamics as well as the biochemical processes inside the reactor should be considered simultaneously. This represents a complex task during experiments or in full-sca...

The increasing share of wind energy induces a strain on the electricity network. To unburden the transmission system operators from this strain, the dispensable wind energy can locally be stored in an energy carrier, e.g. ammonia (NH3). Existing work considers fixed operational parameters during design optimization to represent real-life conditions...

Internal combustion engines have been improved for many decades. Yet, complex phenomena are now resorted to, for which any optimum might be unstable: noise, low-temperature heat release timing, stratification, pollutant sweet spots, and so on. In order to make reliable statements on an improvement, one must specify the uncertainty related to it. St...

The present study introduces new laminar burning velocity data for ammonia/hydrogen/air mixtures measured by means of the outwardly propagating spherical flame method at atmospheric pressure, for previously unseen unburned gas temperatures ranging from 298 to 473 K, hydrogen fractions ranging from 0 vol% to 60 vol% in the fuel and equivalence ratio...

Ammonia is now recognized as a very serious asset in the context of the hydrogen energy economy, thanks to its non-carbon nature, competitive energy density and very mature production, storage and transport processes. If produced from renewable sources, its use as a direct combustion fuel could participate to the flexibility in the power sector as...

To satisfy the increasing demand for energy and potable water, large-scale cogeneration is widely integrated. However, in remote locations, the lack of power system infrastructure limits the integration of large-scale systems. Consequently, a large portion of inhabitants has no access to electricity and the pressure on groundwater resources increas...

While the optimization of the internal combustion engine (ICE) remains a very important topic, alternative fuels are also expected to play a significant role in the reduction of CO2 emissions. High energy densities and handling ease are their main advantages amongst other energy carriers. Ammonia (NH3) additionally contains no carbon and has a worl...