Low-emission flat-flame burners for industrial furnaces

Low-emission flat-flame burners for industrial furnaces "From Science to Business" Workshop 11 – 12 October, 2006 Kiev Dr.Sc. (Eng.), Prof. Boris SOROKA Tel/FAX: (38-044) 455-59-98 E-mail: soroka@elan-ua.net Gas Institute, National Academy of Sciences, Kiev, UKRAINE

Talk outline • Problem Description & Market Need • Flat-Flame burners of GPP LE type (brief description) • Features of FFB-equipped furnaces • State of the art • Duty of facility • Surpassed of environmental standards and of the best world data • Advantages of the furnace plants equipped with GPP LE burners • Competition • Benefits • Transfer opportunities

Proprietary information statement • The technology material presented in this talk is available for licensing or joint product development. • None of the slides contain any confidential or proprietary information which would prevent patenting the technology.

Problem Description & Market Need There are a lot of thermal units, first of all-industrial furnaces of various types and purpose-those need sources of uniform intensive heat supply. The Flat-Flame Burners (FFB) of new generation (of GPP LE type) fully meet this demand. Moreover, these FFB ensure combination of technological, operation, energetic and environmental advantages. The potential market of the Flat-Flame Burners including various standard sizes of GPP LE is numbered in the hundred (thousands) of the furnaces and in the thousands (tens of thousands) of GPP LE burners.

Flat-Flame Burner (FFB) of GPP LE type External view and Arrangement at Submerged Combustion Water Heater

Flat-Flame burners of GPP LE type (brief description) The main specific feature of the Flat-Flame Burners (FFB) is unusual form of the flame – the fan (disk) – shaped one, adjacent to the furnace refractory setting. Due to implementation of the Coanda effect in the firing conditions the flame is propagating in the plane, perpendicular to the burner axis in radial direction along the refractory setting. The flame has no axial velocity. Because of flame form, the furnaces being heated with the FFB ensure intensive uniform radiative heating of the materials and the product to be treated.

Features of FFB-equipped furnaces flames corrosion layer slab Flame burners: Non uniform high-corrosion preheating flame corrosion layer slab FFB: Uniform low-corrosion preheating

State of the art • The basic version of Flat-Flame burners of GPP series • - have been patented in many countries (Gr. Britain, France, Germany, Japan etc.), • have beencommercialized, and widely used in various branches of the industry. • More than 300 furnaces, developed and patented by the Gas Institute, NASU, and equipped with the Flat-Flame burners of the GPP series are now under operation in the industry at more than 70 enterprises: - integrated iron-and-steel works and non-ferrous metallurgical works, • engineering and metal-working plants, • chemical (including oil refinery) plants, • building materials (ceramics) factories and the glass works.

State of the art Stage of the GPP LE burners development • Design of Flat-Flame burners of new generation - GPP LE type of some standard sizes - have been developed. • have beentested at the firing rigs (stands) and by industrial conditions (at the furnaces), • are available for demonstration and for field testing.

Duty of facility Range of operating temperatures • The Flat Flame burners (FFB) are intended to provide high intensive uniform heat input for the industrial furnaces of various purpose, beginning from those operating at low (300-500°C), middle (750-1100°C) to high temperature (1250..1700°C). • Arrangement of the furnaces with FFB of GPP LE type ensure technological, energetical and environmental advantages in combination.

Duty of facility Temperature ranges of the plants with GPP LE burners heating plants with SCA (water and solutions heating); pickling bathes; electro plating bathes; low-temperature (LT) heat treatment / LT tempering furnaces; petroleum refining tube furnaces spelter pots; separate zones of sintering furnaces middle (MT)and high (HT) temperature heat-treatment: MT and HT tempering, hardening, normalizing / chamber and continuous furnaces including bell-type; hydrocarbon pyrolisis furnaces;

Duty of facility Temperature ranges of the plants with GPP LE burners Sintering furnaces Rolling, forging, forming processes by plastic steel working / reheating furnaces of continious and of batch type: pusher-type, walking-beam, roller hearth Firing of ceramics / tunnel type kilns, roller hearth furnaces Thermal, chemical and thermal treatmentof non-metallic materials / tunnel type kiln of firing the salts of Mn-Zn and other iron-garners Glass-melting / direct firing recuperative furnaces

The Low-emission flat-flame burners GPP LEhave been developed for the following processes: Duty of facility • reheating, thermal and chemical-thermal treatment of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, as well as of non-metallic materials. Branches of industry: ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, powder metallurgy, machine manufacturing 170 t/h heating furnace of pusher type with FFB at DUNAFERR RT (HUNGARY) rolling mill. About 100 FFB of GGP type have been installed at the furnace roof.

Duty of facility • firing of ceramics, radio-ceramics, ferrites, metallic compounds, salts and oxides of metals; • pyrolysis of the petroleum products; • melting of glass and mineral glass wool; • heating facilities for the premises (water heater). Industrial premises heating plant based upon Submerged Combustion unit equipped with 800 kW FFB of GPP LE type (Multi-purpose factory, Krivoy Rog, Ukraine)

Surpassed of environmental standards and of the best world data NOx emission TA Luft norms (Germany) “Blauer Engel” standard, upper limit Operation data for HG-F burners (Germany) • Dependence of NOx formation ([NOx] - concentration) on combustion air preheating temperature Ta by various furnace temperature, Tfur, °C. Natural gas consumption = 40 m3/hr. Air excess factor = 1.05 • - “low” temp 200…1000 - 1, ♦ • “middle” temp 1000…1300 - 2, ■ • “high” temp 1300…1500 - 3, ▲

Surpassed of environmental standards and of the best world data CO emission “Blauer Engel” standard, upper limit FLOX system Dependence of CO concentration in dependence on air excess factor β by furnace space temperature Тfur = 1100…1300° C, combustion air preheat temperature Ta = 20…100 °C. Natural gas consumption ~40 m3/hr.

Surpassed of environmental standards and of the best world data. Range of combustion stability within cold furnace for FFB HG-F (Germany) under high temperatures Maximum value for FFB BIO, ZIO (G.Kromschröder AG) Performance characteristic of natural gas combustion by means of flat-flame burner GPP-4 LE 1 - stable burning by divergent (180° angle) flame; 2 - stable burning by conical flame; 3 - burning quench condition.

Advantages of the furnace plants equipped with GPP LE burners • Super-wide range of combustion stability by temperature variation, by range of flowrates (heat outputs) and by air excess factors. The burner is ready for operation within the whole control range beginning the ambient (room, indoor) temperature.

Advantages of the furnace plants equipped with GPP LE burners • Low-emission combustionin comparison with the national and international (Germany, USA, EU) standards • Super-uniform heat receiver temperature profile and the resulting heat fluxes: deviation no more than ±(2.0 – 0.5)% – by temperatures and no more ±4% - by heat flux values within the range of 300 – 1600ºC heat receivers temperature(only word application – no quantity information about non-uniformity in case of WS FFB (Germany) in FLOX-mode of operation).

Advantages of the furnace plants equipped with GPP LE burners • Wide-range temperature general-purpose (universality of the application possibilities and the areas of utilization)in contrast to other known (competitive) types of FFB: • FLOX (flameless combustion) method and burner facilities (WS WARMEPROCESS technique GmbH (Germany, USA), is used beginning from 800ºC)). • Special warning about the difficulties, accompanying the firing processes under cold and moderate temperature conditions is indicated for the North American Mfg Co (USA) FFB (see notice in Bulletin № 4832 “Low NOx Flat-Flame Gas Burners): • “In tight, cold furnaces, 4832 Burners are not stable on stoichiometric air/gas ratio. Alternatives during start-ups until furnace reachers approximately 1400F…”

Competition The western companies engaged in the FFB’s R&D, manufacturing and industrial implementation

Benefits • The plants equipped with GPP LE type burners provide: • high-quality super-stable fuel combustion; • combine of high efficiency of fuel utilization and • low-emission stable combustion process. • The main advantages of the furnaces equipped with the burners of GPP LE type : • reduction of fuel consumption; • improvement of preheated articles quality; • improvement of the environmental characteristics;

Benefits Improvement of energetical characteristics. Reduction of fuel consumption • power (thermal) efficiency: • - HT and MT furnaces with heat recovery • systems and LT furnaces 75-85 %; • - HT furnaces without heat recovery 40-45 %; • reduction of specific fuel consumption : • - existing furnaces renovation 30 -40 %; • - new furnaces erection 10 - 20 %; • specific fuel heat consumption by steel before rolling mill • in dependence on furnace output: low – high (optimal) 3 - 1GJ/t; HT – high-temperature MT – middle temperature LT – low temperature

Benefits Improvement of preheated articles quality • high temperature uniformity at the surface to be preheated - deviation • from average temperature (depending on process temperature)±5 -10°C; • reduction of the metal losses caused by oxidation and • decarburization (depending on type of the steel blanks)30 - 50 %; Improvement of the environmental characteristics for high temperature process • reduction of the toxic substances emission, no less than2 times; • specific NOx yield by air preheating temperature 300 °C, • (depending the furnace output)100-30g/t; • NOx concentration at 3% O2 by air preheating • temperature 300 °C75 ppm.

Transfer opportunities We propose various ways of transferring the object of development to CUSTOMER 1. Delivery of the party (parties) of Flat-Flame Burners GPP LE type including the metallic and refractory assemblies. The metallic unit (housing) can be manufactured of cast iron or steel welded construction. The price of the burner makes 1500 – 2500 USD per 1 piece in dependence on standard size and complete equipment.

Transfer opportunities We propose various ways of transferring the object of development to CUSTOMER 2. Transfer of the manufacturing rights including non-exclusive license “know-how” and the design plans and specification for manufacturing the series of standard sizes of GPP LE type. The estimated cost of the complex: license “know-how” + documentation makes $275,000. 3. Joint R&D, engineering, industrial and commercial partnership. 4. Applications for joint EU, USA etc. patents and further share holding by “know-how”.

Low-emission flat-flame burners for industrial furnaces