Influence of air ratio on combustion and NO _x emission characteristics of pulverized coal industrial boiler

A 46 MW pulverized coal industrial boiler with swirl burner had severe slagging and high NO _x emission during actual operation. To solve these problems, a full-scale industrial test was carried out. The flue gas temperature and the composition of exhaust gas were obtained under different ratios of secondary and separated secondary air. The results shown that reducing the ratio of secondary and separated secondary air could delay the ignition of pulverized coal and weaken the flame deflection, which was conducive to slowing down the burner slagging problem. However, it will aggravate the erosion of high temperature flue gas on the back wall, and further aggravated the furnace slagging problem. Changing the air ratio couldn’t substantially improve the problem of high exhaust temperature. Properly reducing the ratio of secondary and separated secondary air could effectively control NO _x emission. When the ratio of secondary and separated secondary air was reduced from 73:27 to 52:48, the NO _x emission was reduced by 44.8%. Reducing the ratio of secondary and separated secondary air leaded to the increase of carbon content in fly ash and slag, but the heat loss of exhaust gas was reduced and the thermal efficiency of boiler was increased.