Combustion Principles

and Control
,
Student ID: E34007101
Instructor : Professor Hsin Chu

Department of Environmental
Engineering,
National Cheng Kung University
January, 2014

TITLE:
A study on two types
of Low NOx Burners:
Technology and
Application

OUTLINE:
1. Introduction
2. New technology: the creation of an ultralean premixing of the fuel with air and
furnace flue gas.
3. An application: Advanced CI-a Low NOx
Burner in pulverized- coal combustion
4. Conclusion/Summary
5. References

Introduction:
(review
for
exam!)
In order to better understand the NOx reduction
technique of Low NOx Burner (LNB), a brief review
of the basic theory of NOx formation should first be
discussed.
Nitrogen Oxides, Nox
N2O
NO
NO2

nitrous oxide
nitric oxide
nitrogen dioxide
Only NO and NO2 relate to combustion

Routes by which NOx is formed

1.Thermal NOx: formed by the oxidation of nitrogen
present in the combustion air
2. Fuel NOx.: produced by oxidation of nitrogen
bound molecules contained in the fuel
3.Prompt NOx: produced by high speed reactions at
the flame front
The need to study oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and its
routes of formation is because it has been found to
be one the greenhouse gases that greatly
contributes to the phenomenon of global warming. It
also has been categorized as a contributor to acid
rain and photochemical smog.

EC directive 88/609/EC sets the following emission

limits for large plant (> 50MW):
Fuel
Solid fuels
High-ranking coal
Liquid fuels
Gaseous fuels

NOx Emission (mg/m3)

650
1,300
450
350

Of all the techniques presently being available, LNBs

stand out because of its low operating cost, is
compatible with flue gas recirculation and can be
used in combination with SNCR or SCR.

Conventional burner vs. LNB?

Conv. Burner incorporates single point injection of
the fuel, followed by the rapid mixing of the fuel
and air by a swirling air supply.
LNB- Upon combustion, the fuel and air are split
into stages giving for a more gradual mixing; firstly
under fuel rich conditions which serves to reduce
the NOx then there is a supply of additional air
(fuel-lean) so that all the HC is combusted; tf is
lowered

NEW
TECHNOLOGY:

Due to tightened NOx, regulations in California

and newly proposed regulations in Texas,
processing facilities are forced in some areas to
reduce Nox, emissions below 10 ppm on large
heat release units.

A new generation of low NOx burner technology

has been developed for eductor-style, radiant-wall
burners used in ethylene cracking furnaces.
The key difference, however, between previous
burner technology and the new technology is the
creation of an ultra-lean premixing of the fuel with
air and furnace flue gas.

1. The new low NOx burner passes 100 percent of the

combustion air through the eductor system using
the motive energy of the primary fuel gas. As the
excess air levels in the primary combustion zone are
increased (making the mixture more fuel-lean),
more air is present to absorb additional heat from
the flame, and NOx emissions continue to reduce
1. Secondly, staged fuel is injected at a location inside
the furnace so that it is able to mix with inert
combustion products before encountering the
remaining oxygen in the ultra-lean primary
combustion.

Then, upon combustion, the high level of excess

air cools the flame by absorbing heat, resulting in a
reduction in NOx emissions.
Reliable air entrainment performance is achieved
via semi-empirical modeling (computerized).
Theoretical and experimental evidence has shown
that thermal NO, formation is highly dependent on
the flame temperature

Two burners firing under identical conditions

in the same furnace at a heat release of 0.94
MM BTU/hr.

TREND:
As the secondary fuel split increases, the NOx, levels
decrease.
As we increase the fuel split in the secondary, we
decrease the primary fuel flow rate, raising the air
fuel ratio in the eductor. Recall an increase in the airfuel ratio reduces the adiabatic flame temperature
and, therefore, the NO, formation rate.

Advanced CI-a Low NOx

Burner in pulverizedcoal
combustion
Coal-fired thermal power plants mainly involve
pulverized coal combustion, for which
environmental pollutants, particularly NOx
emissions, must be reduced.

Among low-NOx combustion technologies, the

staged
combustion method is the most effective for
pulverized coal
combustion.
Some of the combustion air is separated from the
burner is supplied via injection ports mounted on

However, unburned carbon tends to increase,

which decreases the combustion efficiency and
makes it difficult to utilize fly ash as a component of
cements or concretes.

It has therefore been desired to develop a new

combustion technology, by which NOx can be
reduced without the increase of unburned carbon

Hence, an advanced low-NOx burner called CI-a

was developed.

CI-a Burner:

 The primary air has a straight motion, and

secondary and tertiary air have strong swirling
motions.
This recirculation flow
1. lengthens the residence time of pulverized coal
particles in the high-temperature field near the
burner outlet
2. accelerates the evolution of volatile matter and the
progress of char reaction

 Therefore, the amount of unburned carbon is

effectively reduced, but the NOx concentration
increases in this region.
However, NOx is immediately reduced to N2 in the
reduction flame existing after the recirculation zone.
Furthermore, this NOx reduction effect is promoted
by the staged combustion method, in which some
of the combustion air separated from the burner is
supplied via injection ports mounted on the rear of
the furnace.

Computational Domains and

Conditions:

The test furnace used is that at the Yokosuka

Research Laboratory of CRIEPI, in which the CI-a
burner with a coal combustion capacity of about 0.1
t/h is installed

 The swirl vane angles for secondary and tertiary

air are set at 81 and 72 , respectively, which
are optimum values for bituminous coal (these
values are zero when the swirl force is zero).
The pulverized coal is carried by the primary air.
Conditions:
The computational conditions are given to
correspond
with our experiment .
The coal feed rate is about 97 kg/h).
The air ratio is 1.24, and the excess O2
concentration at the furnace outlet is 4.0%.

Conditions:
The staged combustion air ratio is set at 30%. The
mass ratio of the pulverized coal (dry base) to the
primary air is 1:2.2, and the mass ratio of secondary
air to tertiary air is 1:6. The test fuel is Newlands
bituminous coal.

The computation is performed using the STAR-CD code.

Fig. 5(b) shows that the

recirculation flow can be
seen in the region near
the burner.

 The CI-a burner was designed so that the large

recirculation flow forming in the central region
lengthens the residence time of pulverized coal
particles in the high-temperature field, which
accelerates the evolution of volatile matter and
the progress of char reaction.

 Only the coal

particles containing
unburned carbon
are plotted.
the small
particles with
diameters of 5
and 20 vanish
due to the
evolution of
volatile matter
and char reaction
in this nearburner zone,
whereas the
larger particles
are carried

 This is attributed to the fact that these particles

are caught by the recirculation flow, which
appears in the central region (arrow B in Fig. 5(b) )
and their residence times in this zone are
lengthened.
On the other hand, the regular motions for the
larger coal particles are due to the fact that they
have large inertias and hence are hardly affected
by the recirculation flow.
It can be concluded that the recirculation flow
formed by the CI-a burner effectively increases
the particle residence time in the region near the
burner.

Conclusion:
It was verified that recirculation flow is formed in
the upstream high-gas-temperature region near
the CI-a burner outlet, and this lengthens the
residence time of coal particles in the hightemperature region, promotes the evolution of
volatile matter and the progress of char reaction,
and produces an extremely low-O2 zone for
effective NOx reduction.
It was determined that this new low NOx burner
technology can generate NO x emissions < 10
ppm (at 3% O2) without significant effect on the
thermal efficiency of the conventional system.

References:

Bussman, W., Poe, R., Hayes, B., McAdams, J., & Karan, J. (2002). Low NOx
burner technology for ethylene cracking furnaces. Environmental Progress,
21(1), 1-9. doi: 10.1002/ep.670210107
Khanafer, K., & Aithal, S. M. (2011). Fluid-dynamic and NOx computation in
swirl burners. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 54(2324),
5030-5038. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2011.07.017
Kurose, R., Makino, H., & Suzuki, A. (2004). Numerical analysis of pulverized
coal combustion characteristics using advanced low-NOx burner. Fuel, 83(6),
693-703. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2003.07.003
Moore, M. J. (1997). Nox emission control in gas turbines for combined cycle
gas turbine plant. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers,
Part A: Journal of Power and Energy, 211(1), 43-52. doi:
10.1243/0957650971536980
Rrtveit, G. J., Zepter, K., Skreiberg, ., Fossum, M., & Hustad, J. E. (2002). A
comparison of low-NOx burners for combustion of methane and hydrogen
mixtures. Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, 29(1), 1123-1129. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1540-7489(02)80142-0
Zhou, H., Yang, Y., Liu, H., & Hang, Q. (2014). Numerical simulation of the
combustion characteristics of a low NOx swirl burner: Influence of the
primary air pipe. Fuel, 130(0), 168-176. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2014.04.028