Chemical Engineering August 2022 - 14

Newsfront
Achieving Balance in
Combustion
New hardware combined with monitoring technologies can help optimize combustion now and
in the carbon-conscious future
C
ombustion has long been
a delicate balancing act.
Chemical processors want
their combustion systems
to be fuel efficient and available for
use, while at the same time, they
must also be safe and meet emissions
standards. Unfortunately,
these requisites are often at odds
with each other. Recently, the trend
toward reducing carbon emissions
is throwing yet another challenge at
combustion management. However,
thanks to new technologies and the
inclusion of combustion monitoring,
processors may find it easier to
achieve harmonious balance, even in
a carbon-conscious culture.
" The general issue with combustion
is that as processors try to meet
production goals, they are forced
into a situation where minding emissions
permits, efficiency and regulations
nearly forces them to run in a
state that is at odds with what would
be the easiest and most efficient operation
and would provide them with
the most reliability and best asset
lifetime, " says Neil Widmer, senior
business development manager with
Fives North American Combustion
Emerson (Shakopee,
Minn.; www.
emerson.com).
" This forces them
into a very narrow
operating range. "
While oxides
FIGURE 1. EcoFornax LE and LEX (shown here) burners both
rely on lean premix. The LE also employs fuel staging and dilute
combustion mixing technologies to accomplish emissions and
efficiency goals
14
of nitrogen (NOx)
emissions have
been the major
pollutant to fret
over, the trend
toward fuel efficiency
and decarbonization
threatens
to make this
delicate combustion
balance even
more precarious. " NOx emissions
are now back on the table as an ongoing
challenge because there are
new rules in place that require NOx
reductions for a large number of
heaters and fired equipment, " notes
Matthew Martin, chief R&D scientist
with XRG Technologies (Tulsa, Okla.;
www.xrgtechnologies.com). " CO2
is a new challenge due to the focus
on decarbonization because unless
you're burning ammonia or hydrogen,
any combustion process
makes CO2. "
Chuck Baukal, director
of the Koch Engineered
Solutions Institute (Tulsa,
Okla.; www.kochengineeredsolutions.com)
agrees
that this is a developing
trend to watch:
" Pollution emissions are
always an issue for the
chemical processing industry,
but one of the
newest challenges is a
great deal of attention on
CO2 emissions. So now
XRG Technologies
FIGURE 2. XRG's Xceed system provides a modification to the combustion
system for fired heaters, furnaces and boilers that changes the way in which
combustion takes place to distributed combustion or disbursed combustion,
allowing for NOx and CO2 reductions by changing the heat transfer inside
the system
folks are considering changing their
fuels to something like hydrogen or
ammonia, which don't produce CO2
emissions. "
Mark Hannum, manager of Innovation
and Research and Development
with Fives North American
Combustion (Cleveland, Ohio; www.
fivesgroup.com), adds: " While there
are currently not many regulations
regarding CO2 emissions in the U.S.,
many processors are creating their
own corporate goals and/or anticipating
future regulations and trying
to determine what they can do now
to 'future proof' their businesses and
processes in a new application or
when installing new equipment. They
want to do this without sacrificing
any of their other needs regarding
safety, reliability and efficiency. "
Achieving emission goals
Combustion-equipment providers
are continually improving existing
equipment to assist with reaching
tighter emission regulations. For example,
there are new burner technologies
that produce lower NOx
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
AUGUST 2022
http://www.emerson.com http://www.fivesgroup.com http://www.xrgtechnologies.com https://www.kochengineeredsolutions.com/ https://www.kochengineeredsolutions.com/ http://WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
Chemical Engineering August 2022

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