Combustion in our daily lives

After looking into the energy supply and its resources, we must get an idea that combustion as the
most important and generic idea involved in our daily lives. Many times the combustion involved
in the process of energy supply is not even visible unless we look closely and go the root source
of energy supply.

Let us have a quick glance around our local environment which will show the importance of
combustion in our daily lives.

The electricity we use in our houses is generated using mainly fossil fuel by burning it in gas or
oil-fired furnace or boiler. Then the hot energy carrier, mostly water, is supplied through the
turbines to generate the electricity. So, our nations electricity needs are met primarily by the
process of combustion.

Our transportation system relies mostly or we may say almost entirely on the combustion in
reciprocating engine, or aviation gas turbine engines.

Our industry processes rely heavily on combustion:

• Iron, steel, aluminum and other metal-refinery industries employ furnace for producing
raw product, and heat treating, and annealing furnaces or ovens are used downstream to
add value to the raw material as it is converted into a finished product.
• Other industry combustion devices include boiler, refinery and chemical fluid heaters, glass
melters, solid dryers, surface-coating curing and drying ovens, and organic fume
incinerators etc. to give a few examples.
• The cement manufacturing industry is heavy user of the heat energy delivered by
combustion.
In addition to the helping us make products, combustion is used at the other end of the product life
cycle as a means of waste disposal. Incineration is an old method for the waste disposal, but it is
receiving renewed interest because of the limited availability landfill sites in the densely populated
areas. Apart from that, incineration is also attractive for its ability to dispose the toxic wastes safely.
Incineration is a type of combustion.

Negative impacts on our daily lives

Combustion looks so much involved and beneficiary for our daily lives. However, there are
downside issues too associated with it which makes us think of differently; especially when we
look at the environment pollution.

Environment pollution
Combustion also produces some environmental pollutants as its byproduct. The major pollutants
produced by combustion are unburned and partially burned hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen (NO