You are here:
APPLICATIONS OF PULSE COMBUSTION IN INDUSTRIAL AND INCINERATION PROCESSES
Citation:
Zinn, B., B. Daniel, A. Rabham, M. Lukasiewicz, P. Lemieux, AND R. Hall. APPLICATIONS OF PULSE COMBUSTION IN INDUSTRIAL AND INCINERATION PROCESSES. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/A-92/269.
Description:
The paper describes a recently developed approach for using a tunable pulse combustor (PC) to improve the performance of energy intensive industrial processes (e. g., drying, calcining, and incineration) by retrofitting the process with a tunable PC that is operated at a frequency that excites large amplitude resonant pul- sations within the process. These pulsations increase the rates of mass, momentum, and heat transfer, which generally increase the productivity and thermal efficiency of energy intensive processes and reduce pollutant emissions from incinerators. The paper presents results showing that recently developed PCs can excite large amplitude beneficial pulsations within small-scale simulations of industrial scale processes. It shows that resonant pulsations increase the productivity and thermal efficiency of water evaporation, and significantly increase the rate of limestone calcination. It discusses results obtained in tests with an EPA rotary kiln incinerator simulator that was retrofitted with a tunable PC. The test results show that the excitation of pulsations within the incinerator reduced soot emissions during the incineration of toluene and polyethylene by between 50 and 75%. In addition, these pulsations reduced carbon monoxide and gas-phase hydrocarbon emissions during polyethylene incineration.