Resumo

MARTINEZ-FLORES, Marco Antonio et al. Environmental and economic benefits of optimizing the combustion system of a steam generator. Ing. invest. y tecnol. [online]. 2020, vol.21, n.2, e1655.  Epub 13-Nov-2020. ISSN 2594-0732.  https://doi.org/10.22201/fi.25940732e.2020.21n2.019.

The objective of this work was to evaluate the economic and environmental benefits of a 158 megawatts (MW) steam generator that operates with fuel oil as fuel, derived from making operational adjustments to the combustion system and the design of its atomizers. To achieve the objective, various different types of atomizers were designed and built, which were cold tested in a real-scale atomization bank. The atomizer design INEEL of better performance, it was compared in operation against the original atomizer. The most important benefits of the INEEL design atomizer were a 53 % reduction in particle matter (PST) emission, a reduction of 93 % in carbon monoxide (CO) and a fuel saving of 897 kilograms per hour (kg/h), which will stop emitting 651 tons per year (tpa) of CO, 19 tpa of nitrogen oxides (NOX), 1,091 tpa of PST, 583 tpa of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and 23,614 tpa of carbon dioxide (CO2), also reaching a monetary saving of 170,352 pesos per day. The results show that the application of scientific studies on combustion systems is a viable alternative to improve the financial efficiency and environmental performance of an industrial complex.

Palavras-chave : Efficiency; emissions; PST; CO; economic savings; steam generators; atomizers.