Heat recovery furnaces

Assessments of control, operabiHty and part load performance of MHD—steam plants are discussed elsewhere (rl44 and rl45). Analyses have shown that relatively high plant efficiency can be maintained at part load, by reduction of fuel input, mass flow, and MHD combustor pressure. In order to achieve efficient part load operation the steam temperature to the turbine must be maintained. This is accompHshed by the use of flue gas recirculation in the heat recovery furnace at load conditions less than about 75% of fiiU load. 

Energy efficiency of the process. If the process requires a furnace or steam boiler to provide a hot utility, then any excessive use of the hot utility will produce excessive utility waste through excessive generation of CO2, NO, SO, particulates, etc. Improved heat recovery will reduce the overall demand for utilities and hence reduce utility waste. 

Reducing products of combustion from furnaces, steam boilers, and gas turbines by making the process more energy efficient through improved heat recovery. 

Heat Recovery and Seed Recovery System. Although much technology developed for conventional steam plants is appHcable to heat recovery and seed recovery (HRSR) design, the HRSRhas several differences arising from MHD-specific requirements (135,136). First, the MHD diffuser, which has no counterpart ia a conventional steam plant, is iacluded as part of the steam generation system. The diffuser experiences high 30 50 W/cm heat transfer rates. Thus, it is necessary to allow for thermal expansion of the order of 10 cm (137) ia both the horizontal and vertical directions at the connection between the diffuser and the radiant furnace section of the HRSR. 

Heat Recovery and Feed Preheating. The objective is to bring the reactants to and from reaction temperature at the least utihty cost, and to recover maximum waste heat at maximum temperature. The impact of feed preheating merits a more careful look. In an exothermic reaction, preheated feed permits the reactor to act as a heat pump, ie, to buy low and sell high. The most common example is combustion-air preheating for a furnace. 

Although there are minor differences in the HCl—vinyl chloride recovery section from one vinyl chloride producer to another, in general, the quench column effluent is distilled to remove first HCl and then vinyl chloride (see Eig. 2). The vinyl chloride is usually further treated to produce specification product, recovered HCl is sent to the oxychlorination process, and unconverted EDC is purified for removal of light and heavy ends before it is recycled to the cracking furnace. The light and heavy ends are either further processed, disposed of by incineration or other methods, or completely recycled by catalytic oxidation with heat recovery followed by chlorine recovery as EDC (76). 

Multiple-hearth roasting offers ease of operation, abiUty to handle a wide variety of ores or blends, and Httle downtime. On the other hand, these furnaces are no longer being built because of their high capital and labor costs, relatively low sulfur dioxide off-gas, need for added fuel, and marginal opportunity for waste-heat recovery. 

Heat recovery from furnace off-gas (LCV gas) normally used to preheat coke and blast air LCV gas has also been burned to heat melting baths and generate steam and power. 

Coal properties influence pulverizer capacity and the sizing of the air heater and other heat-recovery sections of a steam generator. Furnace size and heat-release rates are designed to control slagging characteristics. Consequently, heat-release rates in terms of the ratio of net heat input to plan area range from 4.4 MW/m" (1.4 X 10 Btii/[h ft ]) for severely slagging coals to 6.6 MW/m (2.1 X 10 Btii/[h ft ]) for low-slagging fuels. 

Fig. 6-11. Schematic diagram of the kraft pulping process (6). 1, digester 2, blow tank 3, blow heat recovery 4, washers 5, screens 6, dryers 7, oxidation tower 8, foam tank 9, multiple effect evaporator 10, direct evaporator 11, recovery furnace 12, electrostatic precipitator 13, dissolver, 14, causticizer 15, mud filter 16, lime khn 17, slaker 18, sewer.

Due to the great variation in pressures, flux rates, materials of construction, heat recovery, burner configuration, etc., correlation of process heaters is difficult even with large amounts of data. For similar furnaces, heat absorption vs. cost gives the best correlation. It is again recommended that vendor help be obtained for estimating process furnaces, unless data on similar furnaces is available. Data can be found in References 24 and 25. 

Production of heat in furnaces and boilers Recovery of furnace heat Other Applications... 

Firebox Overpressure - The firebox of a forced-draft furnace and boiler is designed to withstand the overpressure that can be generated by the fans with dampers in their closed position. This needs to be specially checked when both forced and induced-draft fans are provided to discharge combustion products through heat recovery facilities, since higher than normal fan pressures may be used to overcome pressure drop. In the case of high-pressure process furnaces, a tube rupture could also be the cause of firebox overpressure. 

Furnaces are large users of energy, and in order to reduce costs, such equipment should be well insulated, used to maximum capacity and most of the waste heat in both the flue gases and product recovered. It should be possible to recover the waste heat in the flue gases down to at least 200°C. Specialist equipment for such waste heat recovery is available in the form of recuperators and regenerators. 

Early SM boilers were manufactured with between two and four corrugated furnace tubes in wet-back and dry-back versions and generally incorporated heat recovery equipment such as economizers and air heaters. Some designs also provided for superheaters and for coal, oil, or gas fuel firing. Many of the best features are incorporated in the SM boilers commonly available today. 

The term waste heat boiler is also widely used to cover heat recovery boilers (HR boilers), which tend to be direct-fired steam generators, albeit employing low-grade by-product fuels such as bagasse, wood bark, com cobs, peanut shells, blast furnace gas, black liquor, and the like. 

AVT Barg BD BDHR BF BOF BOOM BOP BS W BSI BTA Btu/lb BW BWR BX CA CANDUR CDI CFH CFR CHA CHF CHZ Cl CIP CMC CMC CMC COC All-Volatile treatment bar (pressure), gravity blowdown blowdown and heat recovery system blast furnace basic oxygen furnace boiler build, own, operate, maintain balance of plant basic sediment and water British Standards Institution benzotriazole British thermal unit(s) per pound boiler water boiling water reactor base-exchange water softener cellulose acetate Canadian deuterium reactor continuous deionization critical heat flux Code of Federal Regulations cyclohexylamine critical heat-flux carbohydrazide cast iron boiler clean-in-place carboxymethylcellulose (sodium) carboxy-methylcellulose critical miscelle concentration cycle of concentration... 

The iron smelting process in the blast furnace is a classic example worth mentioning in order to illustrate some general features of waste heat recovery. With respect to the combustion of its fuel and the resultant formation of gases, the iron blast furnace is like a huge gas producer. There is always an excess of carbon in the combustion zone, and the product formed in it is carbon monoxide. There is, of course, no steam blown in as such, but whatever moisture is present in the blast is decomposed by carbon, as in creating producer gas ... 

As excess air is reduced, theoretical flame temperature increases. This has the effect of reducing the stack loss and increasing the thermal efficiency of the furnace for a given process heating duty. Alternatively, if the combustion air is preheated (e.g. by heat recovery), then again the theoretical flame temperature increases, reducing the stack loss. 

As with furnaces, discussed in Chapter 15, the draft in boilers can be natural, forced draft or induced draft. Forced and induced draft arrangements are the most common. For large boilers requiring a significant amount of equipment in the flue to treat the exhaust gases to remove oxides of sulfur and/or oxides of nitrogen, as well as equipment for heat recovery, a combination of forced and induced draft might need to be used. 

Hi i-Temperature Coke (1173 to 1423 K or 1652 to 2102°F.) Essentially all coal-derived coke produced in the United States is high-temperature coke for metallurgical applications its production comprises nearly 5 percent of the total bituminous coal consumed in the United States. About 90 percent of this type of coke is made in slot-type by-product recovery ovens, and the rest is made in heat recovery ovens. Blast furnaces use about 90 percent of the production, the rest going mainly to foundries and gas plants. The ranges of chemical and physical properties of metallurgical coke used in the United States are given in TAle 24-3. Blast furnaces use about 90 percent of the production, the rest going mainly to foundries and gas plants. 

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