Development of a novel catalytic burner for natural gas combustion for gas stove and cooking plate applications

On the request of Gaz de France Research Department, Catator AB has designed, constructed and evaluated a catalytic burner, based on Catatorʹs patented wire mesh catalysts, for natural gas combustion in gas stoves or cooking plates. The results have shown that burner operation results in extremely low NOx emissions (1–3 mg NOx/kWh), acceptable CO-levels (0–15 mg CO/kWh), relatively high thermal efficiencies over a broad range of power inputs (40–50% for 1–4 kW) and a long catalyst life-time (>10 000 h). Other advantages of this burner design are its compactness and ease of cleaning. The critical concern is the high emissions of unburned hydrocarbons measured at slow cooking mode (<1 kW), which is believed to be overcome by developing and implementing an appropriate heat-exchanger with the burner.