The report describes results of a research study of the pollution characteristics of high-pressure atomizing, No. 2 distillate fuel oil burners. The main emphasis was on optimizing burner design to minimize pollutant emissions when firing into refractory-lined combustion chambers. The atomizing characteristics, and flow and composition profiles in the combustion zones of several commercial burners were determined experimentally. Nitric oxide (NO) formation was most prevalent in the near-stoichiometric combustion zones where local flow conditions led to vigorous gas mixing. These data were used to design variable geometry burners, used to optimize burner geometry for minimizing pollutant emissions. The optimum geometry burners were fabricated in fixed-geometry versions and tested extensively to verify their low air pollutant emissions. Substantial reductions (about 50 percent) in NO emissions were achieved by optimizing conventional designs, with negligible emissions of other pollutants. Also, several nonconventional burner designs were built and tested: two of these led to very low NO emissions.

"EPA-650/ 2-74-047." "June 1974."