Emission of Oil-Fired Furnaces Burning with Sodium Chloride-Contained Air,

Abstract

Because of the increasing concern about the global environmental pollution and health problems, the burning of marine and industrial heavy oil‐fired furnaces operated in atmospheric air of high sodium chloride content has long attracted much research interest. It is known that many complex compounds of oxides could be formed from the oxidation process of a degraded heavy oil containing various extents of toxic metallic compounds of vanadium, potassium, etc. with the inlet air of high sodium chloride content, which results in an alteration of emission characteristics of a combustion unit. In this study, a small furnace associated with an industrial burner was employed to investigate the influences of the existence of sodium chloride in atmospheric air on the emissions of marine or industrial oil‐fired furnace. The burning gas characteristics such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, gas temperature were analyzed using a gas analyzer and a L‐type thermocouple. This study shows that the emission is affected to a significant extent by the presence of sodium chloride. Poorer atomization and in turn less complete burning of the injected oil was caused by the addition of NaCl in the inlet air. The formations of excess oxygen, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide were enhanced while the emission of carbon dioxide was inhibited with the existence of sodium chloride in the inlet air. In addition, the nitrogen oxides emission decreased with the addition of sodium chloride primarily due to the lower attainable gas temperature.