Emission characteristics and axial flame temperature distribution of producer gas fired premixed burner

This paper presents the emission characteristics and axial flame temperature distribution of producer gas fired premixed burner. The producer gas fired premixed burner of 150 kW capacity was tested on open core throat less down draft gasifier system in the present study. A stable and uniform flame was observed with this burner. An instrumented test set up was developed to evaluate the performance of the burner. The conventional bluff body having blockage ratio of 0.65 was used for flame stabilization. With respect to maximum flame temperature, minimum pressure drop and minimum emissions, a swirl angle of 60° seems to be optimal. The experimental results also showed that the NOx emissions are inversely proportional to swirl angle and CO emissions are independent of swirl angle. The minimum emission levels of CO and NOx are observed to be 0.167% and 384 ppm respectively at the swirl angle of 45–60°. The experimental results showed that the maximum axial flame temperature distribution was achieved at A/F ratio of 1.0. The adiabatic flame temperature of 1653 °C was calculated theoretically at A/F ratio of 1.0. Experimental results are in tune with theoretical results. It was also concluded that the CO and UHC emissions decreases with increasing A/F ratio while NOx emissions decreases on either side of A/F ratio of 1.0.