DEVELOPMENT OF PREMIXED BURNER BASED ON STABILIZED COMBUSTION WITHIN DISCRETE POROUS MEDIUM

Though extensive research has been carried out on porous media combustion (PMC), more attention is needed to explore the feasibility of this promising technology for practical applications. In the present study an attempt is made to develop an eco-friendly and compact, premixed liquified petroleum gas (LPG) burner based on matrix-stabilized combustion in porous medium (PM). The premixing mechanism is the combination of a swirler and steel wire-mesh packing. The preheating zone is made up of ceramic (porcelain) foam and the reaction zone is a packed bed of solid (Al2O3) spheres. The experiments are conducted with different layers and sizes (10, 20, and 30 mm) of alumina balls. Transient and steady temperature distributions and emissions (NO, CO, and SO2) are measured in each case for a constant equivalence ratio. It is found that the combination of porcelain foam (preheat layer) and one reaction layer made of 30-mm-size balls gives the best performance. It is observed that the proposed burner (PMB) can yield a 60% saving in fuel and 76% NOx reduction, compared to the conventional burner (CB). The CO and SO2 emissions are also well within the global standards. The thermal efficiencies of the PMB and CB are also estimated by proper experiments. For a fuel input of 0.4 Lpm (liters per minute) the thermal efficiency of the PMB is found to be 56% whereas for the CB, it is 46% at a fuel input of 0.5 Lpm.