Benjamin Emerson
PhD
Georgia Institute of Technology | Principal Research Engineer
Speaker
Track E: Alternative and Renewable Energy
Session E3: The Hydrogen Economy: Technical Pathways to Scale and Integration
September 18, 2025 | 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Hydrogen Combustion Research at Georgia Tech
Hydrogen combustion is an important technology with numerous current applications and unbounded future potential. Much of the future potential of hydrogen combustion is derived from efforts to decarbonize power and propulsion. However, introduction of hydrogen as a power generation or propulsion fuel introduces new engineering challenges. These engineering challenges largely occur at the intersection of combustor operability and NOx emissions. Fortunately, these challenges may be overcome through combustion research and development, and together with industry the academic combustion research community has made great progress to this end. This presentation will give an overview of the combustion research facilities at Georgia Tech, the applications and opportunities that hydrogen fuel presents, the specific hydrogen combustion challenges that are being explored, and some of the results and insights that have been gained.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Emerson is a Professor of Aerospace Propulsion at Georgia Tech. Dr. Emerson’s work at Georgia Tech includes fundamental research and development of clean energy for aviation and power generation, with a large focus on hydrogen and ammonia combustion for ground power, alternative sustainable aviation fuels, combustion dynamics, operability, and emissions. This includes experimental testing of engine-scale hardware at real operating conditions. External to Georgia Tech, Dr. Emerson manages the gas turbine hot section services at Turbine Logic, which include asset monitoring and root cause analysis of a worldwide fleet of gas turbines for power generation and mechanical drive applications.