EMISSION STUDIES ON POROUS MEDIA COMBUSTION BURNER

Abstract

Steadily increasing use of fossil fuel represents the greatest danger for planet Earth as a result of the ever-increasing CO2 and NOx emissions in the atmosphere. Development and use of modern technology for combustion of fossil fuels and use of very efficient systems for heat exchange (water—smoke gases) in a useful form permit increased energy efficiency while maintaining or increasing the level of comfort, with decreased emission of CO2 and NOx. This work presents the advantages of the burner with a built-in heat exchanger. The objective of the present work is to advance the development of a novel porous medium burner with an integrated heat exchanger. The burner does not work as a catalytic combustor but the fuel burns within the pores of an inert porous medium. The heat exchanger as embedded in the porous medium provides high heat transport rates. This design results in a highly efficient and compact integrated burner/heat exchanger. Due to its small size, compared to conventional fossil fuel heaters, new applications in household can be foreseen. The existing designs of porous medium radiant burners have typically relied on premixed mixtures of gaseous fuels and air. In the present dissertation, combustion analysis is done for a newly developed porous media radiant burner with inbuilt heat exchanger. This cylindrical burner system has an insulated porous media inlet preheating section, a combustion chamber section and a heat exchanger section. Provision for the temperature measurements in axial direction, in combustion chamber and exhaust duct to ascertain the efficiency of combustion and heat transfer processes are made. AVL DiGas 4000 exhaust gas analyzer has been used to measure the oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO) to assess the reduction in these pollutants by the introduction of the porous media. The analysis part includes studying the effect of the parameters such as thermal input, equivalence ratio, and effectiveness and emission characteristics of the system. x