What is Industrial Combustion?

Combustion File no.: 32 Version no.: 2 Date: 17-10-2000

Author: Peter Roberts Referee: Nick Syred Source: Author

1. General definition
For the purposes of the IFRF Combustion Handbook, combustion is defined
as the oxidation of fuels, typically, but not exclusively, through the rapid
combination of hydrogen and carbon contained in the fuel with the oxygen
contained in atmospheric air. This rapid combination releases heat at
relatively high temperature, which may then be used for the heating of
industrial processes, including the generation of steam and high-pressure
hot water. This may be very simplistically represented as:
2C + O2 ---> 2CO + Heat
2CO + O2 ---> 2CO2 + Heat
2H2 + O2 ---> 2H2 O + Heat

2. Industrial Fuels
An industrial fuel may be a regular fossil fuel such as coal, crude oil, or
natural gas. These may be processed from their raw “as found” state to
produce a wide variety of refined fuels such as blended pulverised coal,
desulphurised coal gas, Liquified Petroleum Gases (LPGs), liquid fuels ranging
from gasoline through to residual oils and so forth.
Alternatively the fuel may be derived from biomass material. Traditional
firewood is arguably the “original fuel” used by mankind. Alternatively fuels
may be derived from wastes to produce so-called “Refuse Derived Fuels”or
RDFs.
Industrial Fuels are discussed in greater depth in associated Combustion Files –
see below.

3. Industrial Comburents
An industrial comburent may range from regular atmospheric air containing
approximately 21% v/v O2, the remainder being almost exclusively molecular
nitrogen - N2 , through oxygen enriched air to relatively pure oxygen –
Oxygen containing a very small quantity of impurities.
Alternatively oxygen depleted (vitiated) air – for example Gas Turbine or
Diesel exhaust gases - may also be used as a comburent.
Industrial comburants are discussed in greater depth in associated
Combustion Files – see below.

4. Industrial Combustion Modes

Traditional industrial combustion processes were primarily based on the
concept of the comburent – almost always, regular atmospheric air – being
encouraged to rise through a bed of fuel originally containing wood but later
various forms of lump coal and most recently, domestic solid waste. Such a
system is described as a stoker fired boiler of which there a several basic
types. Figure 1 shows an example of a stoker fired boiler. A photograph of
the firebed is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1: Stoker fired boiler

Figure 2: View of fire-bed in a stoker fired boiler

In recent decades such solid fuel combustion modes, have given way, at least
in relatively large coal fired scale boilers, to pulverised coal burners, where
the coal is milled to a very fine powder – typically 75% by mass<75µm, and
passed through a burner in suspension in an atmosphere derived from the
coal dryer. This produces a turbulent diffusion flame, an example of which is
shown in figure 3. Arrays of such flames are used to fire boilers of various
designs.

Figure 3: Example of a pulverised coal flame

Most recently, there has been a trend towards the development of various
forms of fluidised beds - bubbling and recirculating - for the smaller scale
combustion of coal and other solid fuels. See figure 4.

Figure 4: Rauma CYMIC fluidised bed boiler

Source: Kvaerner Pulping Oy, Finland

Liquid fuels have been traditionally burned in various forms of pot burners,
but modern liquid fuel burners employ atomising devices to produced fine
droplets of the fuel which initially are evaporated in the throat of a burner
which gives rise to a turbulent diffusion flame, an example of which is shown
in figure 5.

Figure 5: Example of a fuel oil flame

Finally gaseous fuels are exclusively fired in burners which give rise to
flames. These may be produced by premixing the gaseous fuel and the
comburent to give a “premixed” flame. Alternatively the gaseous fuel and the
comburent may be mixed in the burner to give a regular turbulent diffusion
flame, as shown in figure 6

Figure 6: Example of a burner mixed natural gas flame

The flame examples introduced in the foregoing paragraphs display
different characteristics and shapes which depend upon the fuel and the
burner design. These aspects will be explored further in a cluster of
Combustion Files.

5 Conclusion
General and detailed descriptions of industrial fuels and comburents are
given in series of combustion files elsewhere in this handbook. It is clear from
the various examples of combustion given above, that there is a variety of
combustion modes used in industry.
Flames are of considerable importance in industrial process heating and have
formed the basis of the research of the International Flame Research
Foundation for over 50 years (Ref to Spirit of IJmuiden), and thus get
extensive attention in this handbook. However the various form of bed
stokers, particularly fluidised beds, are also of particular importance in
industry and will eventually receive the attention they deserve in due course.
The reader is encouraged to dig deeper and deeper in this mine of industrial
combustion related information.
Acknowledgements
This Combustion File contains images from a number of sources including the IFRF M2 trials and
magazine articles authored by Bengt-Johan Skrifvars and Pia Kilpinen of Åbo Akademi and
Hartmut Spliethof of TU Delft.

Glossary Terms
Fuel: A fuel is the generic term describing the material – solid, liquid,
gaseous, emulsion etc. - which contains the carbon and/or hydrogen
consumed in the industrial combustion process.
Comburent: A comburent is the generic term describing the gaseous
mixture, which contains the oxygen used in the industrial combustion
process.

Keywords:
Combustion, flames, fuel, comburent, burners, industrial combustion

The information contained in this Combustion File is derived from the IFRF
Combustion Handbook (http://www.handbook.ifrf.net)
 IFRF 2000