"Global energy consumption is continuously increasing, leading to an increased world wide demand for new power generation installations in the near future. In order to protect the earth s climate, energy conversion efficiency and the use of sustainable resources have to be improved significantly to reduce the emission of the greenhouse gas CO2. To maintain our high standard of living and to enhance it for developing countries, the improved technologies have to be cost-neutral. Gas turbines play today a major role in energy generation. In the future, gas turbines will become even more important, when old coal-fired steam cycle power plants are replaced by integrated gasification plants. However, current gas turbine technology experiences a flattening technology curve and further increase in total efficiency at low NOx emissions is only achieved in incremental small steps. Additionally, current technology is not prepared to operate on hydrogen-rich fuels from biological resources or coal gasification. A new approach was developed that promises a significant improvement in efficiency and emissions and provides the ability to burn hydrogen-rich fuels. For operation on carbon-containing fuels, it enables CO2 capture at low cost. The concept is based on a high pressure air-steam gas turbine cycle using extremely high amounts of steam. The goal of the proposed project is to investigate the fundamentals of ultra wet combustion to develop the technology for a prototype combustor which is capable of burning natural gas, hydrogen and fuels from coal or biowaste gasification at low NOx emissions. Research will include the combustion process, the aerodynamic design, acoustics and control, combining the main disciplines of the Chair of Experimental Fluid Dynamics."