The fuel of a gas-fired boiler is gas such as natural gas, city gas, biogas and liquefied gas, etc. What kind of fuel the boiler burns is decided by an equipment called a burner. The boiler equipped with a gas-fired burner is called a gas-fired boiler. There are three methods of gas-fired boiler combustion as per technical characteristics of how the gas and air mix.
1. Diffusion combustion:
Gas and air mutually diffuse at the gas nozzle and are burning. The advantages are burning stably and with simple burner structure. However, the heated area is easy to be carbonized due to long flame, which is easy to produce incomplete combustion.
2. Premixed combustion:
A part of air and gas are premixed before combustion (coefficient of primary air surplus is between 0.2-0.8), and then being burned. The advantages are clear combustion flame, enhanced combustion, and high thermal efficiency.
The term “boiler efficiency” is often substituted for thermal efficiency or fuel-to-steam efficiency. When the term “boiler efficiency” is used, it is important to know which type of efficiency is being represented. Why? Because thermal efficiency, which does not account for radiation and convection losses, is not an indication of the true boiler efficiency. Fuelto-steam efficiency, which does account for radiation and convection losses, is a true indication of overall boiler efficiency. The term “boiler efficiency” should be defined by the boiler manufacturer before it is used in any economic evaluation.
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.
