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Improving furnace and boiler cost‐effectiveness and CO 2 emission by adjusting excess air
Author(s) -
Lee ChienLi,
Jou ChihJu G.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
environmental progress and sustainable energy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.495
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1944-7450
pISSN - 1944-7442
DOI - 10.1002/ep.10543
Subject(s) - boiler (water heating) , flue gas , combustion , flue , environmental science , waste management , natural gas , airflow , thermal , volumetric flow rate , engineering , chemistry , meteorology , mechanical engineering , thermodynamics , physics , organic chemistry
Reducing the input excess air or airflow rate to a furnace or boiler will result in decreasing transmission rate of the thermal flow from the radiation zone to the convection heating surface zone in the furnace. Results of the plant‐scale test presented in this article show that if the furnace is operated at 3.6 × 10 7 kcal/h of combustion capacity, decreasing the residual O 2 concentration in the furnace flue gas from 4% to 2.5% will save 9.3 × 10 3 m 3 of natural gas consumption, and 2.1 × 10 4 tons of CO 2 emission annually. For the boiler tested in the study, 1.8 × 10 5 m 3 of natural gas consumption and 3.9 × 10 5 tons of CO 2 emission will be reduced annually if it is operated with 90 ton/h steam yield. Hence, controlling the input excess air (or oxygen) as an important operating alternative to enhance thermal efficiency, and alleviate environmental impact of a heater furnace and boiler has been confirmed in this research. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2012