G. Pont et al., EMISSIONS REDUCTION AND PYROLYSIS-GAS DESTRUCTION IN AN ACOUSTICALLY DRIVEN DUMP COMBUSTOR, Combustion and flame, 113(1-2), 1998, pp. 249-257
Citations number
20
Categorie Soggetti
Thermodynamics,"Energy & Fuels","Engineering, Chemical
The research described here focuses on the enhancement of hazardous wa
ste and pyrolysis gas surrogate destruction and the reduction in nitri
c oxide and unburned hydrocarbon emissions in an acoustically resonant
dump combustor. While several prior studies have focused on flowfield
interrogation and hazardous waste surrogate destruction under conditi
ons of natural acoustic excitation, the present study focuses on the d
evice's behavior under externally forced acoustic excitation. The effe
ct of external forcing on hazardous waste surrogate destruction in the
device was recently found to be significant, yielding destruction rat
es for the surrogate SF6 that increased by as much as four orders of m
agnitude with acoustic forcing at specific resonant modes [1]. The pre
sent study also indicates a significant improvement in performance wit
h external forcing at the same acoustic modes as those explored earlie
r. Emissions of NO are seen to decrease by nearly 60%, unburned hydroc
arbons are seen to drop by over two orders of magnitude, and waste and
pyrolysis gas surrogate destruction is seen to increase by nearly thr
ee orders of magnitude, all with external forcing at a specific acoust
ic mode of the device. The present observations further support the id
ea that acoustically resonant conditions can render the dump combustor
device extremely efficient as well as highly controllable as a small-
scale thermal treatment system. (C) 1998 by The Combustion Institute.