In a milestone toward a more sustainable combustions process, Tenova developed the first burners for furnaces using up to 100 percent hydrogen while keeping NOx emissions below strict limits.
Tenova, a leading company in sustainable solutions for the green transition of the metals industry, continues its efforts toward 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 percent), the company is now ready to bring onto the market a self-recuperative burner for heat-treatment furnaces.
The new 200-kilowatt 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 (approximately 78 percent). Moreover, it allows to maintain minimum level of NOx emissions, releasing less than 80 mg/Nm3 @ 3 percent of oxygen even with 100 percent hydrogen,” said Davide Astesiano, R&D manager at Tenova Italimpianti.
The TRKSX SmartBurner was designed in consideration of the decarbonization 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 leading 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 decarbonization 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.
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