Reduction of energy consumption and pollution emissions for industrial furnace using hydrogen-rich tail gas

Using the recovered tail gas (FG) that consists of 60 mol% (50–70 mol%) of hydrogen gas to replace heavy fuel oil (FO) as furnace fuel was studied. With higher FG/FO ratios, the hydrogen content in the fuel increases so that the volume of flue gas reduces to reduce the furnace internal pressure that leads to slower uprising velocity of the thermal flow in the furnace and hence more efficient thermal transmission in the furnace. The results reveal that complete replacement of fuel oil with the recovered tail gas will reduce about 45.8% of the resulting flue gas, lower the furnace radiation zone temperature by 45 °C, raise the furnace convection zone temperature by 18 °C. Additionally, the annual savings of heavy fuel oil can be 2.3 × 104 m3 heavy fuel oil with the reduction of 53.4 tons SOx emission, 21.9 tons of NOx emission and 4.9 × 104 tons of CO2 emission. Therefore, reusing the recovered tail gas to completely replace heavy fuel oil (FO) as the furnace fuel along with operational adjustments of fresh air flow rate and flue baffle angles will alleviate the discharge of greenhouse gas.