Nitric oxide emission reduction in reheating furnaces through burner and furnace air-staged combustions

Abstract

In this study, a series of experiments were conducted on a testing facility and a real-scale furnace, for analyzing the nitric oxide (NO) emission reduction. The effects of the temperature, oxygen concentration, and amount of secondary combustion air were investigated in a single-burner combustion system. Additionally, the NO-reduction rate before and after combustion modifications in both the burner and furnace air-staged combustion were evaluated for a real-scale reheating furnace. The air-to-fuel equivalence ratio (λ) of individual combustion zones for the furnace was optimized for NO reduction without any incomplete combustion. The results indicated that the NO emission for controlling the λ of a single-zone decreased linearly with a decrease in the λ values in the individual firing tests (top-heat, bottom-heat, and bottom-soak zones). Moreover, the multi-zone control of the λ values for individual combustion zones was optimized at 1.13 (top-preheat), 1.0 (bottom-preheat), 1.0 (top-heat), 0.97 (bottom-heat), 1.0 (top-soak), and 0.97 (bottom-soak). In this firing condition, the modifications reduced the NO emissions by approximately 23%, as indicated by a comparison of the data obtained before and after the modifications. Thus, the combined application of burner and furnace air-staged combustions facilitated NO-emission reduction.