When burning fuel – whether in a boiler, a furnace, an oven, or another piece of equipment, we should try to meet three major objectives:
- Burn efficiently: Burning fuel efficiently results in the greatest possible heat value out of the fuel’s potential.
- Burn cleanly: Burning fuel cleanly prevents toxic greenhouse gases from being exhausted into the atmosphere.
- Burn safely: Burning fuel safely ensures the surrounding areas are safe from the combustion process.
Let’s talk about the combustion process and combustion control and how they relate to these three objectives.
The combustion process is a chemical reaction between a fuel source, oxygen, and a heat source. This reaction transforms fuel and the surrounding oxygen into heat energy – mainly in the form of heat and flame.
The difference in an unplanned combustion event, such as a house fire or wildfire, and a planned combustion event, such as in a burner system, is the ability to control the factors in the chemical reaction to supply a predictable output of heat energy.
Once this process is under control, we can use the heat energy for a wide range of useful applications, like manufacturing, power generation and many other processes that are beneficial to us personally, and collectively in our economy.
Combustion Control is the ability to manipulate this chemical reaction in such a way that we can predict the outcome and reach specific goals and setting that will be required for a certain process.
We’re Here to Help
We help our customers choose the right system for their applications to increase efficiency, reduce downtime, and improve productivity.
For example, if we want to produce a level of heat output to create steam in a boiler that will heat an industrial process to a certain temperature within a certain time, we can size and select the proper boiler and burner system that will help us achieve these goals – or set points – and set up the system in such a way that it will operate efficiently, cleanly, and safely.
This provides the user what they want, when they want it, while avoiding outages, production losses, and downtime – all while reducing fuel costs by running more efficiently.
Combustion & Control Solutions is a comprehensive sales and service provider for burner and combustion systems, boilers, heat exchangers, boiler room equipment, and controls. We service industrial, institutional, and commercial customers in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida Panhandle.