Effect of water on oil fired burners

[Sawsan311]

Dear All,

I would like to get your views and knowledge on the impact of high water content in the liquid oil fuel which is to be used for firing forced draft burners fired heater.
I think the presence of water reduce the combustion efficiency as it shifts the equilibrium of the combustion reaction as per the Le Chatelier principle?

Appreciate your responses.

 

[crshears]

Is the water somehow miscible in the oil due to use of an emulsifying agent? If not, and if enough of it gets drawn to the burner in a slug, combustion itself can be adversely affected, perhaps even interrupted.

I don't know about anything combustion reaction equilibrium or the le Chatelier Principle [ I'll have to look them up ], but whatever heat is absorbed by water within the furnace without being captured in the steam generator passages will be lost up the stack...and the vast majority of boilers are non-condensing; you can do the math way better than I ever could.

CR

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]

 

[LittleInch]

Well on the basis that water doesn't burn it can't help but decrease the heat output / efficiency of the burner. Now by how much is the question here and that isn't one I'm aware of.



Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[crshears]

How to answer "by how much?" isn't my forte, but I have heard that water happens to have one of the highest latent heat values of all chemical compounds...

CR

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]

 

[Dhurjati Sen]

Dear Sawsan311,

Lower COT to be sure. May cause coking of the furnace tubes. Could lead to lot of process parameter upsets downstream.

Regards.

DHURJATI SEN
Kolkata, India