Practically Applied Fruitful Results and Finally Designed Images in High Performance Industrial Furnace Development Project and the Future Scope

Page 1

TV^b PRACTICALLY APPLIED FRUITFUL RESULTS AND FINALLY DESIGNED IMAGES IN HIGH PERFORMANCE INDUSTRIAL FURNACE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT AND THE FUTURE SCOPE Tadashi Tanigawa, Mitsunobu Monta The Japan Industrial Furnace Manufacturers Association 6F, ESTEC Bldg. 2-1-20 Iwamoto-Cho, Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo, 101-0032, JAPAN PHONE [phone] FAX [phone] E-maiI kose i [e-mail] ABSTRACT With Japan's preparation of its "Action program to prevent global warning" in 1990 and the holding of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) in 1992 as a backdrop, reflecting the global effort to protect the environment, a "high performance industrial furnace development project" was launched in 1993 by the New Energy & Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). This project focuses on the development of a combustion technology which uses air that is preheated to extremely high temperatures (above 1,000'c), heretofore considered impossible. Not only can this technology reduce carbon dioxide emission, thought to cause the greenhouse effect, by over 30%, but it can also reduce nitrogen oxide emission by nearly half. This new technology makes use of the recently developed high cycle regenerative heat exchanger, for preheating the furnace air supply. This exchanger preheats air to above 1,000'C, much higher than for conventional furnaces, and then this air is injected with fuel. R&D data have shown that CO2 and NOx emissions can be reduced markedly. However, the theoretical analysis is yet to be made,thereby hampering efforts to have this advanced technology become widely adopted. Our project accumulated new many datas related with uniform temperature distribution, high exergy heat transfer and low NOx as common characteristics of high temperature air combust i on. This time we explain the above mentioned datas and analysis results, then show practical applied high performance industrial furnaces designed images. INTRODUCTION The Combustion Institute of Japan, the Japan Industrial Furnace Manufacturers Association, and JSUP (the Japan Space Utilization Promotion Center) are jointly carrying out the "High Performance Industrial Furnace Development" project for developing new technology for curbing global warming as one of the enterprises of NEDO through the assistance of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. This project is aimed at the development of new type industrial furnaces that have thermal efficiency several degrees higher than conventional industrial furnaces and the basic technology used for this purpose is the combustion method using high temperature air above 1,000'c that has so far been considered difficult. This method enables carbon dioxide, which is considered the causative substance of global warming, to be reduced more than 30% from the ordinary level. In addition, an approximately 50% reduction of NOx from the conventional level can be expected from this new method. The excellent features of high temperature air combustion were recognized in Japan earlier than in any other country and have recently been attracting the attention of foreign countries. Comprehensive activities ranging from research on basic theory of - 1 -