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Show EFFECTS OF O2 ENRICHMENT ON THE PREFORMANCE OF A LOW NOx BURNER. A. Sobiesiak and A. Kropinski Centre for Advanced Gas Combustion Technology Department of Mechanical Engineering Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada INTRODUCTION. The trend in the reheating technology towards increased production rates, improved product quality and expended assortment has resulted in revival of interest in the use of oxygen. One method to introduce oxygen into combustion process is by oxygen enrichment of combustion air. This technique reduces the amount of nitrogen entering the furnace and increases the flame temperature, resulting in improved combustion efficiency and increased furnace productivity. Environmental concerns and legisaltive regulations make it compulsory to reduce the pollutant emissions resulting from combustion processes. Utilization of oxygen enriched combustion air could, while delivering benefits of increased flame temperatures for the reheating process, compromise the goal of reduced pollutant emissions. In particular oxides of nitrogen emissions can increase due to the strong dependence of their production rates on both flame temperature and oxygen concentration. The objective of this study is to examine how increasing the concentration of oxygen in combustion air changes the performace of a industrial 10w-NOx burner. Results presented here are from the first stage of the investigation. The second stage with the objective of providing more detail and for broader range of input conditions is now underway. PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF OXYGEN ON THE COMBUSTION PROCESS. The two following equations for the combustion of methane (major component of natural gas) 1. stoichiometric combustion with ambient air 2. stoichiometric combustion with 4% additional oxygen in the air 1 |