CFD investigation of NOx reduction with a flue-gas internal recirculation burner in a mid-sized boiler

Abstract

The demand for reduction of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from industrial facilities continuously increases, and considerable efforts have been exerted to achieve this goal. In this work, we propose a novel flue-gas internal recirculation (FIR) burner emphasizing the function of FIR to accomplish single-digit NOx emissions from a mid-/large-sized combustion system. In the new design, a FIR passage is installed inside the conventional non-FIR burner to draw back the flue gas from the combustion chamber and release it into the chamber as a mixture of air and flue gas. The effectiveness of FIR burner is evaluated by employing extensive computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with an enhanced reaction rate model. The existing eddy dissipation model for reaction rate, including the turbulence-chemical interaction, is improved by introducing a position-dependent scaling factor, which is validated by comparison with temperature profiles in experiments. CFD predictions show that a small amount of flue gas returned to the burner still significantly alters the flow structure and temperature distribution. Accordingly, NOx emission is dramatically diminished (82.83 and 9.7 ppm in the non-FIR and FIR systems, respectively) using the FIR burner. These observations confirm that the new FIR burner effectively accomplishes ultra-low NOx emissions in field-scale combustion systems. In addition, the fundamentals of NOx reduction by the FIR burner are thoroughly examined in the present study. The findings will provide essential knowledge in designing other ultra-low NOx burners.