Sandia's confined flow burner was designed to study ultra-lean premixed hydrocarbon combustion processes and hydrogen-enriched hydrocarbon fuels.

Hydrogen has numerous potential applications as a fuel and energy carrier, including running turbines to produce electricity and powering fuel cells for cars. The technological challenges associated with widespread hydrogen usage require much additional research.

While hydrogen can fuel tomorrow's fuel cells, it can fuel today's internal combustion engines. Researchers at Sandia are working on a variety of technologies for the practical and cost-effective use of hydrogen energy in the not-so-distant future. These efforts focus on the use of hydrogen in conventional technologies to serve as "bridging" technologies and thereby market entry for hydrogen end-use devices. The goal is to provide a near-term market driver to foster development of the hydrogen infrastructure.

These research projects cover the following areas:

• Advanced combustion capabilities for gaseous hydrogen and hydrogen-blended hydrocarbon fuels in gas turbine applications
  
• Advanced hydrogen-fueled free piston engines
• Internal combustion engines, conventional configuration