Combustion technology

Relentlessly rising energy costs and the need for careful management of limited resources require innovative technologies plus continuous improvement. The EVO JET burner has been developed by BENNINGHOVEN’s research team to meet real-world needs.

BENNINGHOVEN’s established and well-known approach to usability also played a key role in the development of this burner. The burner features a modular, highly accessible design.

The burner is mounted on a chassis to ensure it can be easily moved into place for maintenance work. A frequency converter system ensures that both the burner fan and oil pump are perfectly coordinated with one another, and can work throughout all control ranges. As a result, only the specific level of consumption requested is used for drying, whatever the output setting. Redesigned from scratch, the new silencer keeps noise to a minimum while simultaneously improving the energy conversion efficiency of combustion. This is achieved by the new air inlet layout. The improved energy conversion efficiency results from trapping the heat radiated by the front wall of the drum and re-routing the preheated air to the burner. This, in turn, means less energy is required to preheat the air, which helps to lower the costs of fuel. Burners in the EVO-JET series feature mature designs for all fuel types and have been comprehensively field-tested. This energy-saving program is rounded off by BENNINGHOVEN installing only electric motors compliant with the new IE 2 (or IE 3) standard – soon to become mandatory.

Heating oil is injected into the burner head via a nozzle at high pressure (optionally in combination with compressed air), mixed with the air flow from the fan, and ignited by a propane gas flame. A stable, clean flame ensures efficient heating of the minerals fed into the drying area and also avoids the need for a combustion chamber with a fireclay lining. A synchronous control system is used to generate an optimal fuel/air mix across the entire control range, so as to guarantee clean combustion. A corresponding heater device is used to preheat viscous types of fuels. This ensures ideal conditions for viscosity, as well as environmentally friendly combustion. These types of fuels are typically heavy or used oil.

The safe and efficient use of the BENNINGHOVEN EVO-JET burner is based on longtime experience in handling gas types like natural gas, town gas, and bio gas. Gas is fed into the burner at a final working pressure of 300 mbar via a gas section that is fully equipped with all of the necessary safety, control, and monitoring systems. A specialized gas distributor ring is used to route the gas along a circular path, mix it with the fan air, and feed it for combustion. The end result is optimum operating efficiency plus clean, ecological combustion.

Liquid gases (LPG) like propane, butane, or mixtures of these are stored in specialized tanks and fed to the burner as a liquid fuel at around 10 bar via a high-pressure pump. A gas safety section is included as a compact burner subassembly. A metering valve is used for precise fuel dosing, with a specialized nozzle for handling injection, ignition, and clean burning.

The coal dust burner for dryer drums features an array of nozzles in the burner head for routing the coal dust fuel, ensuring that it is thoroughly mixed with the combustion air before being ignited by an auxiliary burner. This produces a stable burner flame that works economically with very little excess air.

Burners in BENNINGHOVEN’s EVO-JET series can naturally also be supplied as combination burners for any and all of the fuel types mentioned above. Clustered control systems have been specially developed here that let burner operators pick the relevant fuel type at the touch of a button on the control cabinet. This avoids any need for a mechanical conversion of the burner.