Decarbonisation Technology – August 2021

analyser to monitor the excess oxygen and combustibles levels to detect any early onset of incomplete combustion – which may have resulted from burner tip fouling, for example. Nevertheless, predictive, proactive maintenance can provide another method to ensure proper heat transfer within fired equipment and enhance process reliability, reducing unneeded fuel consumption and plant emissions. Conclusion Overall, the combustion reaction offers a simple yet impactful framework to identify the key levers to decarbonise fired equipment: fuel, oxygen, available heat, and CO 2 . Energy efficiency can be achieved through optimised combustion (reducing the flue gas oxygen setpoint) or waste heat recovery (increasing heat availability) to reduce unneeded fuel consumption and resulting emissions. Changing to cleaner, low-carbon fuel sources can greatly reduce long-term CO 2 emissions. As an alternative, end users could consider carbon capture, use and storage to maintain their current production processes while also directly reducing their CO 2 emissions. Finally, operators can maximise the available heat transfer of their fired equipment through predictive analytics and proactive maintenance, ensuring equipment cleanliness, reliability and uptime while reducing any unneeded emissions caused by fouling of the burner or process. Through the key levers, end users can better plan for near-term decarbonisation targets and long-term sustainability roadmaps. Tim Tallon Tim.Tallon@ametek.com

Figure 4 Burners before and after cleaning Source: Cambridge University Press “Industrial Flames”

• Burner tips can become fouled over time, and this can cause flame impingement, increased pollution emissions due to incomplete combustion and improper heat transfer. Figure 4 shows the improvement of the burner flame after cleaning. • Heater tubes and boiler tubes can accumulate particulate over time, which insulates the tubes and reduces the heat transfer between the flue gas and process, ultimately increasing the fuel firing rate to overcompensate. • Nonroutine flaring due to poor equipment reliability can cause considerable increases in plant emissions in addition to losses in production. Through predictive analytics and proactive maintenance, operators can ensure their equipment is clean and operating reliably for optimal heat transfer, enabling them to maintain process uptime and reduce unneeded plant emissions. One mechanism includes the use of a combustion

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