3135

Twenty-Seventh Symposium (International) on Combustion/The Combustion Institute, 1998/pp. 31353146

THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF COMBUSTION IN HIGHLY
PREHEATED AIR
MASASHI KATSUKI
1
and TOSHIAKI HASEGAWA
2
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Osaka University
2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
2
Nippon Furnace Kogyo Kaisha Ltd.
1-53 2-Chome, Shitte, Tsurumi, Yokohama 230-8666, Japan
Recent advances in heat-recirculating combustion in industrial furnaces, particularly of the alternating
ow type, are reviewed. A large amount of waste heat can be recovered by this type of system. Highly
preheated combustion air, typically above 1300 K, is easily obtained due to advanced design and materials
employed. Although preheated air combustion generally produces high nitric oxide emissions, it has been
used to generate high-temperature ames for some special applications. The energy saving achieved si-
multaneously by heat recirculation has become more attractive from an ecological point of view. However,
to enjoy the energy saving brought by a high rate of heat recirculation by applying highly preheated air
combustion to generic industrial furnaces, a reduction of nitric oxide emission is required. The possibility
of low nitric oxide emission from highly preheated air combustion is intensively discussed. Dilution of the
air with burned gases and combustion occurring in air with low oxygen concentration are shown to be
indispensable factors in realizing low nitric oxide emissions. This has led to advanced furnace technology.
Fig 1. Temperature history of heat-recirculating com-
bustion of premixed reactants in one-dimensional adiabatic
system [1].
Fig 2. Flammable domain as a function of caloric value
of fuel, Q
f
, initial temperature of mixture, T
i
, and mixture
equivalence ratio, [2].
Background
Preheating of combustible mixture by recycled
heat from exhaust gases has been considered as an
effective method not only for combustion of low cal-
oric fuels but also for fuel conservation. It has been
called heat-recirculating combustion, in which re-
actants are heated prior to the ame zone by heat
transfer from burnt products without mixing two
streams [1]. The temperature histories of premixed
combustion in a one-dimensional adiabatic system
are schematically compared in Fig. 1 for the cases
with and without heat recirculation. The maximum
temperature in heat-recirculating combustion is de-
termined by the amount of recycled heat that is in-
dependent of the equivalence ratio of the mixture or
the caloric value of the fuel used. Accordingly, it
has been held that heat-recirculating combustion
brings about a temperature rise throughout the com-
bustion process in proportion to the amount of re-
cycled heat.
At normal ambient temperature, an ordinary hy-
drocarbon gaseous fuel mixed with atmospheric air
exhibits a combustible domain around the stoichio-
metric composition, and an increase of temperature
of the mixture expands the combustible limits sig-
nicantly, as is illustrated in Fig. 2 [2]. A large in-
crease of the temperature may cause autoignition. If
a fuel of low caloric value is adopted, in contrast,
the combustible domain disappears at ambient tem-
perature and starts to reappear when the mixture is
preheated to exceed a certain temperature level. The
gure shows approximate trends.
3136 INVITED TOPICAL REVIEW
Therefore, some of the research was carried out
aiming at burning ultralean mixtures or low-caloric-
value fuels, which are often produced in chemical
processes or vented from coal mines. In those cases,
the resultant maximum ame temperature due to
heat recirculation was not crucial to tolerance of ma-
terials of the system. Numerous schemes of the kind,
such as excess enthalpy combustion in spiral or coun-
terow heat exchangers [3,4,13], ltering combus-
tion in porous media [59], super adiabatic ame
sustained by radiative heat transfer [10], were stud-
ied in the past and reviewed comprehensively by
Weinberg in 1986 and 1996 [1,11]. In fact, an ultra-
lean mixture of natural gas and air of 0.026 times
stoichiometric is reported to be the leanest mixture
that has ever been burned in porous media [12].
The scientic studies on heat-recirculating com-
bustion just referred to have been mostly carried out
on premixed combustion. For large-scale industrial
use, on the other hand, diffusion or non-premixed
combustion is more common because of its control-
lability and safety. Heat-recirculating combustion in
diffusion or nonpremixed combustion can be
achieved by heating combustion air with the recy-
cled heat from burnt products. The temperature of
combustion air in an adiabatic system can theoreti-
cally be heated up to almost the same temperature
of the exhaust by recuperative or regenerative heat
exchangers. In practice, the technology was rst ap-
plied to melting and reheating furnaces, where high-
temperature ames were essentially required, and
preheated air of 873 K was utilized by a recuperative
burner [13]. Subsequent improvement in materials
has permitted higher preheat, and glass melting re-
generative furnaces have been working with pre-
heated air exceeding 1273 K [14].
Adding to the facts already mentioned, it has been
believed that diffusion ames inevitably harbor near-
stoichiometric ame temperature somewhere within
their structure, borrowing the words of Weinberg
[1], which tends to generate an increased level of
nitric oxides even in great excess air ratio. If more
strict air-quality standards, particularly regarding ni-
tric oxides, are applied to furnaces, reduction of ni-
tric oxides in non-premixed combustion is the rst
issue to be solved for the future utilization of heat-
recirculating combustion in various kinds of fur-
naces.
Another merit of heat-recirculating combustion is
fuel saving. According to Masters et al. [13], a 873
K air preheat results in a reduction in fuel input rate
of 30% for a furnace exit temperature of 1473 K. If
a 1273 K air is obtained by a regenerative heat ex-
changer for the same exit temperature, the reduc-
tion of fuel consumption reaches 50% [18]. The
higher preheat temperature ensures less rejection of
heat with the exhaust, resulting in more fuel saving.
Therefore, heat-recirculating combustion is surely
an attractive technology when we think about future
design of any industrial furnaces as far as fuel saving
is concerned.
Numerous efforts to overcome the conict of in-
terest between fuel saving and the reduction of nitric
oxides emission have been made during the last de-
cade [1520]. Practically, both direct injection of fuel
into a furnace [15,16] and high momentum ejection
of staging air [18,19] were found effective to some
extent in reducing nitric oxide in regenerative com-
bustion. Therefore, the practical extent of heat re-
circulation in industrial furnaces has been specied,
taking into account a trade-off between fuel saving
and tolerance of materials or violation of air-quality
standards.
About 10 years ago in Japan, in the process of de-
veloping a heat-recirculating furnace equipped with
two sets of a staged combustion burner and a ce-
ramic regenerator, which was operated with a high
alternating ow cycle, low nitric oxides emission was
observed even with high-temperature combustion
air temperature of 1400 K [21]. If higher ame tem-
peratures were produced in the furnace due to the
raised air temperature, it is difcult to interpret the
results by our conventional knowledge on nitric ox-
ides formation mechanisms. This consequently led
to an extensive collaboration among industries and
academia and a national project supported by the
New Energy and Industrial Technology Develop-
ment Organization (NEDO) [2238]. Actually, prac-
tical developments and applications of the concept
in industries have made great progress in energy sav-
ing as well as the reduction of nitric oxides emission.
Studies in the same concept have been carried out
in North America and Europe during the same pe-
riod [3942], and the concept of new combustion
technology is clearly explained by the term ameless
oxidation in the review by Wu nning [43]. Accord-
ingly, direct fuel injection [15,16] and high momen-
tum air staging combustion [18,19] referred to pre-
viously seem to be the technologies emphasizing one
aspect of the same category.
During the cooperative development among in-
dustries, new potentialities for high-quality heating,
such as controllability of the heating pattern of the
processes, uniform quality of heated materials, and
downsizing of the processes, were also recognized
[34,35], although high thermal efciency due to high
ame temperature had been stressed frequently.
These attractive characteristics of highly preheated
air combustion have not been studied intensively
due to the short history of the technology. A part of
the recent work on highly preheated air combustion
using gaseous fuel is reviewed in the following sec-
tions, with particular attention paid to the works car-
ried out in Japan.
Limit of Temperature
Heat Exchanger
Although excess heat in exhaust gases can, in the-
ory, be transferred thoroughly to the incoming cold
COMBUSTION IN HIGHLY PREHEATED AIR 3137
Fig 3. Schematic structure of heat-recirculating furnace operated with high-frequency alternating ow regenerators.
Fig 4. Change of temperature prole and available heat
in an alternating ow regenerator (schematic).
combustion air using an innitely long heat ex-
changer, the actual heat transfer rate is limited by
the geometry of heat exchangers. Accordingly, the
maximum obtainable temperature of combustion air
depends not only on the tolerance of materials used,
such as heat-resistance alloys and refractories but
also on heat losses of the system.
The highest measured temperature on a practical
metal recuperative burner was reported to be 873 K
[13]. Regenerators for heat-recirculating combus-
tion appeared rst in Europe, and this work has been
reviewed by Weinberg [1]. The typical regenerative
heat exchanger for preheating of combustion air was
a container bed packed with ceramic balls in which
the ow was alternating. Its size varied depending
on the cycle time between 30 s and several minutes,
that is, on the amount of heat storage. A typical re-
generator for a nominal rating of 586-kWburner can
produce preheated air exceeding 1273 K, which is
generally within 300 K of the furnace temperature
[17]. If a ow shortcut of hot gases through mini-
mum pressure drop in the bed occurs, it gives rise
to uneven temperature distribution in a cross section
of the bed, resulting in lowering the efciency of the
regenerator.
In contrast, the volume of a honeycomb-type re-
generator for the necessary heat capacity can be
minimized because of its large surface-to-volume ra-
tio; thereby, direct installation of the regenerator
into a burner becomes possible, forming a thermal
dam at the exit of the furnace (Fig. 3). Temperature
distribution in a ceramic honeycomb is quasi-one-
dimensional, because ceramic honeycombs assure
uniformity of temperature in a cross section. Ac-
cordingly, combustion air of 1570 K was actually ob-
tained by this regenerative system for a mean fur-
nace gas temperature of 1623 K. That is only about
50 K difference, and the combustion air temperature
was almost constant with less than a 50 K variation
during a cycle, even with the small heat capacity of
the regenerator [35].
In Fig. 4, temperature proles along the ow di-
rection in ceramic honeycombs at both the start and
the end of the discharge mode of the regenerator
are illustrated schematically. The amount of heat be-
tween two limiting proles in the gure is available
3138 INVITED TOPICAL REVIEW
Fig 5. Autoignition and blow-off temperatures of pro-
pane with air and air diluted with nitrogen.
for heat recirculation during a cycle. One can antic-
ipate that the temperature of preheated air can be
kept almost constant during a cycle fromthe fact that
the temperature change on the furnace side is small.
Besides, the length of the ceramic honeycombs can
be selected so that the temperature at the ambient
side does not rise appreciably, to minimize the heat
rejected with the exhaust gases.
Denition of High-Temperature Air
In the title of this review we have used the phrase
highly preheated air. The temperature indicated by
the word highly varies widely, depending on the sit-
uation where it is used. Next, the denition of highly
preheated air is considered for furnace combustion.
Consider a gaseous fuel at ambient temperature
injected into an airstream. When the fuel mixes with
combustion air, some heat is necessary to initiate
combustion. A recirculating ow of combustion
products behind a ame holder or a pilot ame is
frequently utilized for stabilizing ames in furnaces.
However, if combustion air is sufciently heated
prior to mixing, combustion somewhere in the fur-
nace spontaneously follows the mixing of two reac-
tants, even if the ame in the near eld of the fuel
jet is blown off by a strong shear motion.
The temperature level of preheated air seems not
to have any specic meaning when we simply discuss
preheated air combustion. However, the difference
described previously does imply particular signi-
cance in realizing an advanced low-NO
x
combustion,
which is explained later. Therefore, we would like to
propose to take the autoignition temperature of a
gaseous fuel with air as the limit of high tempera-
ture. That is, only air temperatures at which a gas-
eous fuel is ignited spontaneously in it and contin-
uous combustion is sustained should be called high.
Although the denition of high temperature is not
given by a xed gure, we are now able to give the
concept of highly preheated air combustion (HPAC)
a clear meaning. Following the preceding denition,
preheated air combustion (PAC) is consequently de-
ned as combustion with air preheated below this
temperature limit.
Once combustion air is preheated above this limit,
no particular method to stabilize ame is needed for
the furnace combustion. This autoignition tempera-
ture of a gaseous fuel varies depending on kinds of
fuel and concentration of oxygen of the diluted air.
Figure 5 shows autoignition and blow-off tempera-
ture limits for a propane cross-streamjet owing into
a preheated air stream or a nitrogen-diluted air
stream. Autoignition and combustion occur even in
atmosphere of oxygen content as low as 3% when it
is preheated to over 1200 K.
Heat Recirculation and Exhaust Gas
Recirculation
Global excess air ratio or equivalence ratio is one
of the combustion parameters that characterizes the
operating condition of furnaces. The temperature of
combustion products in adiabatic circumstances can
be easily dened by the ratio. However, heat abstrac-
tion by materials to be heated in the furnace as well
as heat losses that occur in practical systems are in-
uencing factors in dening gas temperature in the
furnace. Therefore, the ame temperature associ-
ated with exhaust gas recycling is largely affected by
the reduced temperature level of burnt gases as well
as its recycling ow rate.
Exhaust gas recycling, whether it is internal or ex-
ternal, is an effective method of reducing ame tem-
peratures, and thereby nitric oxides emission. Com-
bustion with normal ambient air usually becomes
unstable when the exhaust gas recycling rate, de-
ned as the mass ratio between exhaust gas to fresh
reactants, exceeds 30% [42,43]. As is shown in Fig.
5, however, a stable combustion domain appears for
high rates of exhaust gas recycling, if the combustion
air is preheated to exceed the autoignition tempera-
ture of the fuel. Actually, very diluted air, with an
oxygen concentration as low as 3%, can sustain com-
bustion when it is preheated to 1200 K.
Figure 6 exhibits the distribution of reaction zone
in non-premixed combustion of propane injected
into a highly preheated airstream and a nitrogen-
diluted airstream. Widely distributed reactions of
low oxygen combustion are very different compared
with the more concentrated reaction in an ordinary
oxygen atmosphere. It is suggested that the heat re-
lease due to combustion reaction is also distributed
yielding a dispersed and moderate temperature rise.
One of us (Hasegawa) has discussed the individual
and multiple inuence of heat and gas recycling[22].
COMBUSTION IN HIGHLY PREHEATED AIR 3139
Fig 6. Non-premixed combustion of propane withhighly
preheated air and air diluted with nitrogen. (T
air
1273
K). (a) Oxygen 21%; (b) Oxygen 4%.
Fig 7. Flame temperature of stoichiometric mixture di-
luted with recycled burnt gases associated with heat recir-
culation and abstraction [22].
Figure 7 shows contours of maximum ame tem-
perature on the combination map of preheated air
temperature and recycling rate of combustion prod-
ucts, where R is gas recirculation ratio, , the ratio
of the recirculated heat to the total heat contained
in the recirculated gas ow, n
h
, the heat exchange
coefcient, and n
m
, an empirical constant dened by
the convective heat transfer coefcient in a parallel
ow heat exchanger.
A combination of highly preheated air and high
recycling rate of burnt products generates a rela-
tively low maximum ame temperatures. We can un-
derstand that the stoichiometric ame temperature
in very diluted air, where the mass fraction of oxygen
is far below the value in normal atmospheric air, is
not as high as we usually expect. This is the key for
highly preheated air combustion when it is applied
to practical combustion systems. Keeping the global
equivalence ratio constant, the ame temperature in
the furnace can be varied or regulated by a combi-
nation of control of the preheated air temperature
and the recycling rate of burnt gases. Because the
incoming airow entrains surrounding burnt gases
in the furnace, a high rate of recycling of burnt gas
can be induced by the high momentum ejection of
combustion air as well as by the furnace congura-
tion.
Nitric Oxides in HPAC
During the last quarter century, intensive experi-
ments and detailed chemical kinetic calculations
have elucidated the formation mechanisms of nitric
oxides. An increase in combustion air temperature
has been recognized as one of the inuencing factors
on nitric oxides emission because it generally causes
higher ame temperatures. The higher the combus-
tion air preheat, the more nitric oxides are emitted.
This is widely understood among combustion engi-
neers regarding on nitric oxides emission from com-
bustion devices.
Consider, however, what will happen when we use
air preheated to a temperature higher than the au-
toignition temperature of a gaseous fuel. If fuel and
air react with each other at a near-stoichiometric ra-
tio in a non-premixed ame, the ame temperature
should vary depending on the initial temperature of
the reactants. Almost the same quantity of nitric ox-
ides should be emitted every time when the same
quantity of fuel is burned in non-premixed ames
with the same air preheat. This is a conjecture based
on the assumption that a similar ow structure oc-
curs with highly preheated air as with ambient tem-
perature air. However, we obtained experimental re-
sults showing that the emission of nitric oxides
changed signicantly by changing only the mixing
process between the fuel and air, keeping the ow
rates and temperatures of the fuel and air constant
[26].
The outline of the experiments is described next.
Figure 8 shows the combustion chamber used in the
experiment. The inlet of the 300-mm-long combus-
tion chamber was contracted and expanded again so
that the ow inside the chamber formed a recircu-
lating ow. The fuel used was natural gas injected
from one of the four nozzles indicated in the gure.
The tip of a 1.5-mm-diameter fuel nozzle was xed
10 mm away from a heat insulated inside wall for
No. 1 and No. 2, and 30 mm for No. 3 and No. 4,
respectively. The direction of fuel injection was
taken at 70 to the horizontal fuel tube, upward for
No. 1 and No. 3 and downward for No. 2 and No.
4. The fuel injection rate was kept constant at 0.06
L
N
/s, and the feed rate of air was varied between 1.5
and 4.0 L
N
/s at standard conditions, and the tem-
perature was maintained between 1423 and 1073 K.
3140 INVITED TOPICAL REVIEW
Fig 8. Combustion chamber used in the experiment.
The global excess air ratio (reciprocal of equivalence
ratio) evaluated by the ow rates of fuel and air var-
ied between 2.27 and 6.25.
The variation of emission index of nitric oxides
versus combustion air temperature and global excess
air ratio is shown in Fig. 9. A drastic change of nitric
oxides emission was observed by changing only the
location of the fuel nozzle. For fuel nozzle 3, the
tendency of emission index in terms of global excess
air ratio was quite different from those for the cases
of fuel nozzle 1 and 2. Further, for fuel nozzle 4, the
emission level was extremely low for any operating
conditions and showed scarce dependence on either
global excess air ratio or combustion air tempera-
ture. Because no unburned hydrocarbons were de-
tected at the exit of the exhaust for all cases, the
decreased nitric oxides emission should not be as-
cribed to imperfect combustion. Therefore, it is con-
sidered that the ame structure or combustion re-
gime was probably affected by the change of fuel
nozzle location, and what we can attribute this to is
the difference in the mixing process of fuel in the
combustor, because other experimental parameters,
such as global excess air ratio and combustion air
temperature, were kept the same.
A typical jet ame emitting intense radiation was
observed for cases with high nitric oxides emission.
In contrast, the typical features of the ame for low
nitric oxides looked diffuse and weak. Dispersed
ames, in appearance like a fog spreading every-
where, were probably the ameless oxidation named
by Wu nning [43]. Judging from the intensity of ra-
diative emission, the maximum temperature level
seemed relatively low, because the ame manifested
no bright emission. Therefore, we measured uc-
tuating temperatures with a ne thermocouple of 25
lm (Pt/Pt-Rh13%) coated with SiO
2
, whose time
constant of frequency response was electrically com-
pensated.
Distributions of time-averaged temperature in the
combustion chamber are shown in Fig. 10. The max-
imum temperature appeared around the center of
the recirculation zone for fuel injection nozzle 1 and
2. This corresponds to the visual observation of
ames mentioned earlier. The maximum tempera-
ture was 1770 K and 1860 K for nozzle 1 and 2,
respectively. Relatively high temperatures appeared
in the downstream portion of the fuel jet for fuel
nozzle 3. Its maximum was 1720 K. The lower half
of the combustion chamber shows relatively low
temperatures. In spite of the same inlet air tem-
perature and velocity, the maximum value was only
1690 K for fuel injection nozzle 4. Intense mixing
seems to yield more attened temperature distri-
butions and lower maximum temperatures. There-
fore, dilution of air by burnt gas must have pro-
ceeded to some extent before combustion. However,
even higher temperatures would have been gener-
ated if fuel was burned with pure air.
Figure 11a and b show temperature uctuations
at the point of the highest time-averaged tempera-
ture. In spite of the same temperatures and ow
rates of fuel and combustion air, not only the time-
averaged temperature but also the root mean square
of uctuations are smaller for the case of fuel nozzle
4 than for nozzle 2. The remarkable difference in
emission index between the two cases is reasonably
interpreted by the cumulative frequencydistribution
of uctuating temperatures shown in Fig. 11c. The
formation rate of nitric oxides becomes insignicant
when ame temperature is lower than 1800 K. The
cumulative frequency corresponding to 1800 K
reads almost 1.0 for nozzle 4, which means that tem-
perature scarcely exceeds 1800 K. For nozzle 2, on
the other hand, temperatures lower than 1800 Kcor-
respond to a frequency of 0.25, which leads to higher
emission level of nitric oxides.
Advanced Low NO
x
Technology for HPAC
In many of industrial countries, regulations for
emission standards have been tightened, particularly
regarding nitric oxides. To comply, low NO
x
tech-
nologies, such as lean combustion, staged combus-
tion, exhaust gas recycling, and others, have been
applied to practical systems. Because the trend of
nitric oxides emission, which increases with com-
bustion air temperature, holds true in either old-type
COMBUSTION IN HIGHLY PREHEATED AIR 3141
(a) Nozzle 1 (b) Nozzle 2
(c) Nozzle 3 (d) Nozzle 4
Fig 9. Inuence of combustion air temperature and global excess air ratio on nitric oxides emission. (a) Nozzle 1; (b)
Nozzle 2; (c) Nozzle 3; (d) Nozzle 4.
combustion or low-NO
x
combustion, unacceptable
amount of nitric oxides will be emitted when highly
preheated air is supplied as illustrated in Fig. 12.
Therefore, the advanced low-NO
x
technology is vital
when highly preheated air obtained by a regenerator
is used.
As previously mentioned (see Fig. 7), intense mix-
ing of combustion air with plenty of burnt gases in
the furnace, produced by high momentum ejection
of combustion air, lowers the ame temperature sig-
nicantly and yields distributed reactions as was ob-
served in Fig. 6. This kind of combustion in low con-
centration of oxygen can be sustained only by the
supply of highly preheated air. If the temperature
level of preheating is below the autoignition limit,
the ame will be instantly extinguished. Therefore,
in addition to the use of highly preheated air, intense
mixing of the air with plenty of burnt gases before
3142 INVITED TOPICAL REVIEW
(a) Nozzle 1 (b) Nozzle 2 (c) Nozzle 3 (d) Nozzle 4
Fig 10. Distributions of time-averaged temperature. (T
air
1073 K). (a) Nozzle 1; (b) Nozzle 2; (c) Nozzle 3; (d)
Nozzle 4.
combustion is essential in advanced low-NO
x
tech-
nology, though this is not applicable to low-tem-
perature air combustion.
Figure 13 shows the concept of advancedlow-NO
x
technology using highly preheated air compared
with that of combustion without low-NO
x
technol-
ogy. The gure does not illustrate actual ows in the
furnace. In combustion without low-NO
x
technol-
ogy, combustion (F/A) between fuel (F) and fresh
air (A) occurs in the near-eld of the burner, there-
after combustion (BF/BA) between diluted fuel with
burnt gases (BF) and diluted air with burnt gases
(BA) may partly follow in the downstream portion
of the ame. Combustion (F/A) in the vicinity of the
burner generates the maximum temperature in the
furnace, and most of the nitric oxides emitted from
the furnace are formed here. However, combustion
in this region is essential to sustain combustion in
the furnace, and entire ames cannot exist if extinc-
tion in this limited portion occurs.
In furnaces operated with highly preheated air, ex-
tremely high-temperature ames are usually gener-
ated, if direct combustion between fuel and fresh air
occurs. To avoid this, not only extinction of base
ames by the shear motion of high-velocity inlet air
but also the dilution of air with burnt gases, must be
enhanced in the preparation process, prior to com-
bustion, by separating fuel and air ports. Note that
those are conditions in which ordinary combustion
cannot be sustained with ambient temperature air.
The change of ame structure due to low concen-
tration of oxygen caused by the high rate of recycling
of burnt gases probably yields low Damko hler num-
ber combustion, where relatively slow reactions may
be taking place, as demonstrated in Fig. 6. Conse-
quently, advanced low-NO
x
technology requires to-
tal design optimization of a furnace as a reactor.
High Quality Heating Process with Energy
Saving
During the development of a high-performance
industrial furnace equipped with a pair of burners
operated with highly preheated air, advanced low-
NO
x
technology, characterized by staged fuel supply
and high momentum ejection of combustion air,
which enhances the high rate of recycling of burnt
gases, has been introduced and progressed. Accord-
ingly, the features of the technology, both as regards
the high frequency alternating ow operation of a
pair of burners and the distributed combustion un-
der low oxygen conditions, eventually contribute to
produce a uniform temperature distribution in the
furnace.
Practically, a uniform temperature distribution
across the process is approached when many paired
burners are installed along a heating process, as
shown in Fig. 14. Although the existence of local
high temperature in the process may cause damage
to, or nonuniform heating of, materials, the cross-
sectional uniform heating achieved allows higher av-
erage furnace temperature by eliminating local over-
heating, and hence higher thermal efciency as well
as a high quality of products due to uniform thermal
treatment.
In the direction of material ow, on the other
hand, the temperature in each zone of the process
can be controlled independently to produce an ap-
propriate heating pattern in accordance with the
COMBUSTION IN HIGHLY PREHEATED AIR 3143
Fig 11. Temperature uctuations at the maximumtime-
averaged temperature and their cumulative frequency dis-
tribution. (top) Nozzle 2; (middle) Nozzle 4; (bottom) Cu-
mulative frequency distribution of temperature
uctuations.
Fig 12. Correlation between combustion air tempera-
ture and nitric oxides emission. 0: Old technology, 1: Low-
NO
x
technology; 2: Advanced low-NO
x
technology. Sym-
bols indicate experimental data from [21].
(a)
(b)
Fig 13. Concept of mixing and combustion in furnaces.
(a) Furnace combustion without low NO
x
technology; (b)
Advanced low-NO
x
combustion using highly preheated air.
temperature sequence required by the heated ma-
terial. The exibility of the heating pattern control,
called free scheduling heating control, brought about
by the cross-ring of pairs of regenerative burners,
also contributes to fuel saving and quality control
[35,44].
In turn, the increase in thermal efciency em-
braces the possibility of downsizing of facilities while
keeping the same production rate. As a result of ve
years collaboration in industry, it is estimated that
more than 30% of energy saving and 20% of down-
sizing will be possible in a prototype reheating fur-
nace of 285 t/h capacity. If this sort of technology is
applied to all such furnaces in Japan, it is reported
[44] that approximately 5% of the national total en-
ergy consumption will be saved.
3144 INVITED TOPICAL REVIEW
Fig 14. High-quality heating process using high-fre-
quency alternating regenerative burners.
Concluding Remarks
The various aspects and potentials of the technol-
ogies of recent heat-recirculating combustion tec-
niques with high-frequency alternating ow regen-
erators have been reviewed. A large amount of waste
heat can be recovered by adopting this concept.
Combustion air preheated to above the autoignition
temperatures of gaseous fuels is easily obtained. Its
distinct feature is that a furnace is enclosed ther-
mally by the system as if thermal dams have been
built at its inlet and outlet. Taking advantage of its
characteristics, the newly proposed combustion
technology has realized impressive fuel saving, low
nitric oxides emission, as well as high-quality heat-
ing.
Although the possibility of advanced low-NO
x
combustion technology using highly preheated air
has been emphasized, combustion in highly pre-
heated air probably includes other advantageous at-
tributes that have resulted fromthe technology, such
as high heat transfer efciency, noise suppression,
and so on. Further practical applications of the tech-
nology to other combustion devices and systems as
well as fundamental studies on lowDamko hler num-
ber ame structure in low concentration oxygen is
expected in the future.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully appreciate the cooperation provided by
the Japan industrial furnace manufacturers association, es-
pecially the chairman, the late Mr. Ryoichi Tanaka, as well
as the support by the New Energy and Industrial Tech-
nology Development Organization (NEDO). We are also
indebted to reviewers for useful information of related de-
velopments outside Japan.
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COMMENTS
Joachim G. Wu nning, WS Inc., USA. You mentioned
that your advanced low NO
x
combustion requires highly
preheated air. I do not agree and think it would work with-
out air preheat also.
Authors Reply. My condition is sufcient for any type
and scale of combustors. I think the scale effect in heat loss
is signicant, and you are right when we think about prac-
tical systems of industrial scale and capacity.

Gernot Staudinger, Technical University Graz, Austria.

The subject presented can also be dened as a combination
of ue gas recycle plus air preheat. Both low oxygen con-
centration and sufciently high ame temperature are ob-
tained under these conditions. Low O
2
concentration is the
basis for low NO
x
. The same principle can be used for
production of reducing gas at low stoichiometric ratios
without soot. This requires mixing of fuel with hot ue gas
in a time shorter than the ignition delay time. See patents
of ESSO and Shell in the late 1960s and early 1970s for
further information.
Authors Reply. Thank you for your comment and infor-
mation.

Lawrence A. Kennedy, University of Illinois at Chicago,

USA. In your lecture, you show the very low generation of
NO
x
that is principally due to the lower overall tempera-
tures that you achieve. Could you comment on the source
of NO
x
? Does the prompt NO mechanism provide the
dominant reacting path under the conditions of your ex-
periments?
Authors Reply. I believe the dominant source is the
prompt NO
x
, and a small fraction may come from the ther-
mal origin judging from the peak level of temperature uc-
tuations.

Roman Weber, International Flame Research Founda-

tion, The Netherlands. Your presentation dealt with one of
the most rapidly developing combustion technologies. In
September 1997, the IFRF carried out a semi-industrial
scale (1MW thermal input) experiments on combustion of
natural gas with air preheated up to 1300 C. Nippon Fur-
nace burners were used, and the furnace was operated as
a well-stirred reactor. Soot was formed that was later on
burned completely. We observed a substantial increase in
the heat ux to the furnace walls compared to conventional
amelike ring. I believe that the uniformity of both the
temperature eld and the combustion product eld may
result in the increased uxes. Can you comment on heat
transfer characteristics of this combustion method?
3146 INVITED TOPICAL REVIEW
Authors Reply. We completely agree with you. The uni-
form temperature eld, even though it is not high enough,
probably results in higher heat transfer rate to cold mate-
rials, the only destination of effective heat than that of con-
ventional amelike ring. This is because, however high
the peak temperature is in the latter case, the volume of
high temperature is localized and radiative heat transfer
from the volume diverges in all directions, not to cold ma-
terials only. We also observed some soot was formed in the
earlier stage of reaction of the injected fuel, and it disap-
peared rapidly with the progress of mixing.

Antonio Cavaliere, University of Naples, Italy. It is of

interest to note that the technology of highly preheated air
is able to reduce the NO
x
production with the use of par-
ticular additional contrivances like staging or a high level
of ue gas recirculation. Do you know any practical device
in which the technology you have described is used under
high-pressure conditions?
Authors Reply. There is not any practical device working
under high pressure, in which the technology in the paper
is used, as far as I know. However, the basic study of the
application to new elds, such as a gas turbine engine, is
being explored.