The Efficiency of Industrial Gas Burners

Industrial Gas Burners provide effective process heating and have many applications. You can select the gas burner of your choice to fulfil tasks such as increasing production or reducing emissions. They can be thought of as a device that mixes fuel with air to get controlled combustion at a fundamental level. They do so by producing a particular heat release pattern and a specific flame. The heat generated in the process controls the temperature inside the combustion chamber to specific process set points. If you are in the process of selecting a burner for some application, the first thing to ask yourself is the purpose of your project. In other words, what are you trying to achieve with it? Does your goal include reducing fuel usage or increasing production? Do you want to limit maintenance or decrease emissions?

An industrial gas burner has a simple concept and is there to provide some basic functionality. Most Gas Burners have a cylindrical shape and mix fuels with oxidants to produce heat and a flame. Despite the simplicity of their fundamental principles, they must be applied appropriately to achieve satisfactory results.

Gas Burners Can Be Of The Following Types:

Cold Air or Ambient Air Burners

These are perhaps the most common burners. They are usually found in residential devices such as gas ranges and gas furnaces. The air is cold or at an ambient temperature just before it passes the combustion chamber. Its design comprises a gas pipe, a nozzle, an air pipe, an air mixer or diffuser, a combustion chamber and sometimes, a burner tile. Older models have lower efficiency than the new ones due to the burner’s design, maintenance-free build, or tuning methods. Although inexpensive, the old ones are inefficient at forging temperatures.

Hot Air Burners

This type of burner uses a central heat-exchanger device to preheat the incoming combustion air and called hot air burners. Hot air burners are built similar to cold air burners with some higher-grade materials to withstand high air temperatures. They, too, are inexpensive but are much more efficient than cold air burners. Also, they require a large, expensive and complex external heat exchanger, so this nullifies the inexpensiveness to a certain degree.

Self-Recuperative Burners

In this type of burner, the heat exchanger is the core part of the machinery placed directly inside the furnace wall. What happens with this design is the heat losses to the ambient are greatly minimised, thereby increasing its efficiency. It is as efficient, if not more, than a hot air burner. The heat exchanger is much more compact which makes the prices shoot up a bit. An important thing to be noted is that while they are a bit expensive, they eliminate the complexity, cost and space needs for an external heat exchanger.

Regenerative Burners

These use a pair of burners that switch between exhausting and firing. Preheating an integral regenerative heat exchanger or a media box can give out higher air preheats. They are also equipped with ceramic discs, balls etc., that act as heat storage media. These media come in direct contact with either the cold combustion air or the hot exhaust gas, all depending on the regeneration cycle point. The first half of the cycle involves heating the storage media to very high temperatures by the hot exhaust gas. The burner then activates the switching valves to reverse the flow path so that the cold combustion air flows over the heat storage media. This type offers maximum levels of fuel efficiency. The expenses are high, and so is the complexity, but the fuel savings more than make up for the expenditure.