Hydrocarbon fuels, combustion characteristics & insulating refractories in industrial furnace

Liquid fuels like Furnace Oil, Light distillate oil, Diesel & gaseous fuels like PNG (Piped Natural Gas), LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) are predominantly used at present in industrial applications. Single fuel, Dual fuel & Multi-fuel options are available in the market. All these fuels are called hydrocarbon fuel. A loss of drop of oil in every second can waste about 4000 liters in a year. Selection of right type of fuel depends on various factors like availability, storage, handling, Pollution & landed cost of the fuel. These different fuels used for combustion in industrial furnace are discussed herewith. Complete combustion in industrial furnace enhances efficiency, control pollution as well as global warming. Efficient use of fuel leads to complete combustion. This paper deliberates about combustion of fuel and how complete combustion is to be achieved in industrial furnace. Stoichiometric ratio ensures complete combustion. Industrial furnace uses refractories to form a combustion chamber with proper insulation to ensure temperature within the combustion chamber is as per requirement of the job. The outside skin temperature of industrial furnace is about 35ºC to 45ºC from safety point of view. To maintain this temperature difference with minimum wall thickness needs proper refractory selection which must withstand high temperature. The main objective of this research paper is to propose strategies to select the right fuel, proper insulating material to achieve complete combustion & minimum heat losses through the walls of combustion chamber. This will help in making an efficient design and optimize combustion controls to keep heat losses at minimum level.