Industrial Burner Industry Overview

com·bus·tion
1. The process of burning.
2. A chemical change, especially oxidation, accompanied by the production of heat and light.

Every company in today's competitive world must keep abreast of new developments. Constant changes in production, technologies and markets are now the norm. With stricter pollutant emissions regulations, industrial combustion equipment manufacturers also face optimization challenges for their products.

Burner manufacturers must guarantee maximum emission levels resulting from combustion. However, flame behaviors, and thus the characteristics of the chemical reaction in the burner are affected as much by the burner geometry as by the internal aerodynamics in the combustion chamber. To ensure efficient operation, burner designs have take into consideration the geometry of the oven, boiler, or equipment where the burner will operate.

Although industrial and commercial burners, burner controls and technology enhancements ensure safe, efficient and environmentally friendly combustion technology, combustion research continues daily. Today's requirements were previously thought unattainable ten years ago. Low emissions technologies are driving the development of new burners. The next generation of industrial burners will be required to maintain extremely low levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions.

In order to attain these levels of reduced emissions, combustion systems incorporate active controls to automatically achieve low emissions with simultaneous high-efficiency regardless of changes in load, gas composition, or hardware deterioration. Air/gas ratio controllers and electronic air/fuel ratio controls with oxygen trim are available and offer alternatives to ensure optimum combustion processes.

New burners are under development to meet the ever-changing desires for processing, space conditioning or specialty needs. Manufacturers are continually working with equipment manufacturers to develop "burner systems" to meet or exceed environmental and process specific requirements. Driven by regulations, new technologies are under development by researchers to control combustion, its by-products and efficiencies.