27.07.2021. Tenova has announced the accomplishment of a key milestone towards a more sustainable combustion process: the development of the first burners for heat treatment furnaces using up to 100 % hydrogen while keeping NOx emissions largely below the strictest limits.
Tenova continues its efforts towards carbon neutrality with an important achievement resulting in a unique portfolio of hydrogen-ready technologies. After the recent launch of the multi-megawatt TSX SmartBurner family for reheating furnaces fueled with a mixture of natural gas and hydrogen (up to 100 %), the company is now ready to bring onto the market a self-recuperative burner for heat treatment furnaces.
New burner tested with a variable fuel mixture
The new 200-KW TRKSX (Tenova Self-ReKuperative Flameless) SmartBurner was successfully tested with a variable fuel mixture of natural gas and hydrogen to potentially eliminate CO2 emissions during the combustion process. The system works in flame and flameless mode with the aim to keep nitrogen dioxide emissions well below the strictest future limits.
“TRKSX SmartBurners preheat the combustion air at high temperature directly into the burner body through the heat exchanger. This makes it possible to reduce fuel consumption significantly, making this technology extremely efficient (approx. 78 %). Moreover, it allows to maintain minimum level of NOx emissions, releasing less than 80 mg/Nm³ @ 3 % of oxygen even with 100 % hydrogen,” affirmed Davide Astesiano, R&D Manager at Tenova Italimpianti.
First installed at the productive site of Tenaris
The TRKSX SmartBurner was designed in consideration of the decarbonisation goals of the steel industry, and will be first installed in a heat treatment furnace for pipes at the productive site of Tenaris (in Dalmine, Italy), a global manufacturer and supplier of steel pipe products and related services for the world’s energy industry and other industrial applications and part of the Techint Group, to which Tenova also belongs.
“Our target is to enlarge Tenova’s burner portfolio to offer our customers the best solution for the decarbonisation of their plants, and we plan to adapt all our burners to be hydrogen-ready. They are also integrated with sensors to make possible dynamic control of waste gases flow, generating precious data for machine learning applications,” said Nicola Cavero, Senior Vice President at Tenova Italimpianti.
(Source: Tenova)
