Combustion efficiency is an indication of the burner’s ability to burn fuel. The amount of unburned fuel and excess air in the exhaust are used to assess a burner’s combustion efficiency. Burners resulting in low levels of unburned fuel while operating at low excess air levels are considered efficient. Well designed conventional burners firing gaseous and liquid fuels operate at excess air levels of 15% and result in negligible unburned fuel. Well designed ultra low emissions burners operate at a higher excess air level of 25% in order to reduce emissions to very low levels. By operating at the minimum excess air requirement, less heat from the combustion process is being used to heat excess combustion air, which increases the energy available for the load. Combustion efficiency is not the same for all fuels and, generally, gaseous and liquid fuels burn more efficiently than solid fuels.
A dryback boiler has a rear wall that is lined with refractory, a wetback boiler has a rear wall that is jacketed by water. Because of this fact, wetback boilers typically boast higher efficiency than dryback boilers as the heat from combustion goes directly into heating water instead of refractory. Wetback boilers are also more forgiving with load changes as the reversal chamber of the boiler is totally submerged in water creating an even heat transfer on the intermediate tube sheet to furnace joint.
