Why premix, why metal fibre?

Traditionally gas and air have been mixed and combusted at the burner nozzle to create a high velocity hot air stream.

Although this can be an effective method of heating, there are also inefficiencies. Dependant on the control equipment used, turndown ratio may be limited and many burners can only be set up to run efficiently at specific outputs. Any move away from this setting can result in an unbalanced gas/air ratio.

To counteract this many engineers resort to an excess air setting that ensures a safe environment but causes inefficiencies, partly due to the high mass of air that needs to be heated. Inaccurate gas/air ratio's can also cause the production of CO,CO2 and NOx.

Products of combustion with low O2 content can have high, potentially fatal CO levels that can also form a reducing atmosphere.

High excess air levels can chill the flame resulting in the formation of Aldehydes.

This high velocity stream also stirs the atmosphere which can be detrimental where a clean atmosphere is required.

Premix technology provides a means of maintaining an accurate gas/air ratio throughout the turndown range and can ensure the tightest emission regulations can be achieved.

Combining premix with metal fibre burners can provide the most efficient method of heating a substrate.

The versatility of metal fibre allows the burner to be accurately designed to suit the application and the low velocity airstream does not stir the atmosphere, resulting in low entraiment of dust and other contaminants.

In many applications the burner can be designed and manufactured in order to ensure the most efficient heat transfer to the product or, if required, the product can pass through the centre of the burner which is then designed to radiate internally.

In all applications the heat transfer is by radiation rather than conduction or the scrubbing action of the hot air stream. Because of this, all heat generated is used effectively rather than wasted heating surrounding structures.

Further efficiencies can be obtained by positioning the burner at an appropriate distance from the substrate and designing the hot face temperature of the burner to ensure the substrate absorbs the energy at optimum rate. The addition of a supersaver gauze in front of the burner further increases the efficiency of the burner by up to 25%.

Metal fibre burners supplied by Infraglo's premix QUBE can be controlled independently or as one zone to accurately provide a thermal profile to suite the customers requirements.

We believe the metal fibre burners with premix control train can provide the most efficient and cost effective heating system currently available.