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High-temperature and low-oxygen combustion technology for carbon rotary

kilns

Article · August 2013

DOI: 10.1109/ICMREE.2013.6893803

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 High-Temperature and Low-Oxygen
Combustion Technology for Carbon Rotary Kilns

Chunhua Wang1, Fengrui Jia1, Hongna Wang2, Zhikun Zhang3, Long Gao3
1
College of Petroleum Engineering, Liaoning Shihua University,Fushun, China
2
China 22MCC Group Corporation [Link],China
3
Shenyang Yuanda Enterprise Group,Shenyang, Liaoning, China
chunhua07@[Link]

Abstract  Taking a carbon rotary kiln for example, cooling zone, as shown in Fig. 1. The preheating zone is
numerical simulations were conducted on gas and solid at the beginning of the kiln inlet. In this zone, the coke is
spaces of the kiln using Fluent and Matlab softwares. in a sticky plastic state. With increasing temperature,
Through changing temperature and oxygen mass coke is dried and begins to release large amounts of
concentration of primary air, temperature field volatiles at the position near the center of the kiln. Theses
distributions are obtained in different conditions. The volatiles vigorously burn with the aid of the secondary air
results indicate that, if the low-temperature flue gas instead supplied by the kiln mounted blowers and the
of the primary air is injected to the kiln at the kiln outlet, temperature in this zone can be up to 1523 K or more.
the temperature of the gas and solid particles in the cooling This zone is called calcining zone. When the calcination
zone will be lower, but the length of the calcining zone will is completed, the coke enters the cooling zone and the
not be shortened notably. Therefore, suggestions were put temperature gradually drops to 1073 ~ 1173 K.
forward, as the low temperature flue gas from the waste
heat recovery device after rotary kiln or mixing the high- At present, the secondary air and tertiary air pipes
temperature gas from the kiln inlet, or the primary normal always insert into the kiln body and burning out because
air mixing with the low-temperature gas is injected to the of uneven heat. The users have to plug pipes, and inject
kiln at the kiln outlet, low oxygen atmosphere area can be the primary air (the oxygen mass concentration is 0.23) to
formed. By the method, solid particles can be cooled, the kiln to be used as the oxidizing air. So the coke
meantime, the solid particles burning loss can be reduced, burning loss in the cooling zone is heavy. Therefore, it is
which lead to the increment of the kiln actual yield. necessary to put forward effective measures to solve the
problem of the coke burning loss.
Keywords  carbon rotary kiln; petroleum cokes; low-
temperature gas; low oxygen combustion There are a lot of high-temperature gases in the
production of petroleum coke calcined by rotary kiln. The
I. INTRODUCTION gas temperature can reach from 800 K to 1500 K or even
more. The heat resource with the high-temperature gas
Carbon electrodes used in the aluminum industry are one other is used to heat the calcining cokes, the rest part
made from green petroleum coke, which should be is all discharged from the kiln inlet. To recovery the
calcined to acquire an appropriate crystalline structure. wasted energy, many plants take some effective steps [1-
This calcining process is carried out in a carbon rotary 2]. For example, waste-heat boiler is installed. The high-
kiln. Firstly, a drying process is carried out to remove temperature gas is discharged at the kiln inlet, enters the
water contained in the kiln lining before the calcining boiler and heats water supplied in the heating surfaces of
process. During this process, the primary air is injected the boiler. The water becomes vapor and is transported
and the fuel such as heavy oil burns at the lower end of to the users for production or living. Then temperature of
the kiln. When the kiln temperature increases to about gas is dropped to about 533 K [3]. For the most part, the
1300 K, the injection of the primary air and the burning low-temperature gas is discharged directly from the
of the fuel are stopped. Secondly, the calcining process chimney to the atmosphere. However, the low-
begins, solid particles to be treated such as green temperature gas should be also recoveried to be used for
petroleum cokes are fed into the kiln at the kiln inlet (i.e., production. It can be used to preheat the primary air or
upper end of the kiln) and then transported continuously inject to the kiln after purification at the kiln outlet. Then
to the kiln outlet (i.e., lower end of the kiln) due to the a high-temperature and low-oxygen atmosphere is
inclination and rotation of the cylinder. During the formed there. By the method, the temperature of calcined
transport, the secondary air and tertiary air are cokes can be decreased and the cokes burning loss can be
respectively injected into the kiln to aid combustion of also reduced. In addition, high-temperature and low-
the volatiles, which evolve from the heated solid particles. oxygen technology has some advantages, for example,
These particles exchange mass and heat with the hot gas fuel can be saved, the discharge amount of CO2 and NOx
from the opposite direction. Finally, the green petroleum can be decreased, combustion noise can be reduced, and
cokes are calcined and flow out of the kiln at the kiln temperature of burning space can be uniform [4-5]. So,
outlet after a series of physical and chemical changes. In the technology is used widely in the heating furnaces.
the calcining process, the kiln is usually divided into
three zones, i.e., preheating zone, calcining zone and
____________________________________
978-1-4799-3336-5/13/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE

 So, the temperature and oxygen mass concentration of II. STUDIED OBJECT
primary air have notably influences on the forming of
high-temperature and low-oxygen atmosphere, further to A practical rotary kiln, 1.8 m in diameter and 36 m in
influence the temperature field distributions of the kiln. length, is shown schematically in Fig. 1. The structural
The aim of this paper is to study the influences of the and the operational parameters of the kiln are presented
temperature and oxygen mass concentration of primary in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. The composition of the
air on the temperature field distributions of the kiln based green petroleum coke is shown in Table 3.
on the developed model.
Green coke feed

Cooling zone Calcining zone

Kiln inlet
Primary air Cokes flow Gas flow

Preheating zone
Kiln outlet

Calcined Secondary air

cokes to cooler

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the calcining process in a carbon rotary kiln

TABLE . ROTARY KILN STRUCTURALPARAMETERS

III. RESEARCH METHOD
Kiln Value Units
Length 36.00 m The mathematical model of the rotary kiln was
Internal diameter 1.80 m developed in the reference [6].The mathematical model
Kiln slope 1.72 ° was developed and divided into two models, i.e., a bed
First secondary air inlet position(from the kiln model and a gas model. The bed model described the
8.04 m
outlet)
processes occurring within the bed of solid particles and
Number of secondary air pipe 4
Distance between air pipes 1.00 m
the gas model described the processes occurring within
Kiln lining thickness 270 mm the gas phase flowing inside the kiln. In the former model,
Kiln wall thickness(stainless steel) 20 mm taking an infinitesimal body along the kiln axis as the
research object, according to the mass balance and energy
TABLE . ROTARY KILN OPERATIONAL PARAMETERS balance, simultaneous differential equations are written
and solved by Matlab.
Parameter Value Units
Petroleum coke flowrate 2.313 kg/s The equations for the latter model were mainly based
Depth of the solid bed 300 mm on fluid mechanics coupled with turbulence, combustion
Primary air velocity 26 m/s and radiation. In this study, the software Fluent was used
vary with the oxygen for this model.
Secondary air flowrate
concentration of primary air
Petroleum coke initial The following models have been used:
293 K
temperature
Calcinated petroleum coke
1.67 kg/s
1) Turbulence: two equations k-ε model.
flowrate
Secondary air initial temperature 293 K 2) Chemical species transport and reaction.
3) Interaction between turbulence and combustion:
TABLE . PETROLEUM COKE COMPOSITION AT THE
KILN INLET
probability density function.

Component Mass fraction (%) 4) Radiation: P-1 model.

Carbon 76.750 The governing equations and the above mentioned
Methane 7.723
models used are not described in detail here. Those
Hydrogen 1.772
Carbon monoxide 1.646 readers who are interested in these equations can consult
Carbon dioxide 0.886 the reference [6]
Hydrocarbon 0.633
Water 8.940
In order to study the influences of the temperature and
Ash 0.250 oxygen mass concentration of primary air on the
Sulphur 1.400 temperature distribution in the kiln, several layouts for
temperature and oxygen mass concentration of primary
air are done in Table 4, respectively. It should be pointed
out that in different conditions, the boundary conditions
are the same as others and their differences are only in


the temperature and oxygen mass concentration of
primary air.

IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

A. Effect of primary air temperature on the kiln

temperature

TABLE . SIMULATED CONDITIONS

Primary air
Number
Temperature/K oxygen mass concentration/%
1 without
2 293 0 Figure2. Effect of primary air temperature on the gas temperature

3 500 0 However, the coke temperature does not vary

4 500 15 monotonically with the air temperature, as shown in Fig.3.
5 800 15 Cokes are heated and up to a higher temperature with the
6 500 9.5 movement from the kiln inlet to outlet. When cokes reach
the cooling zone, the cokes transfer heat to the gas and
7 293 23
the kiln inner wall, but they keep themselves in a higher
temperature state, due to the combustion between a few
The predicted temperature results are presented in of cokes or volatiles and the oxygen. Because of the
Figs.2-5. For convenient, the mean temperature of the gas specific heat of air is substantially smaller than that of
and cokes is only discussed here. cokes, the physical heat of primary air has an unobvious
As shown in Fig.2, in any case, the gas temperature is cooling effect on the cokes. So the chemical heat of air
lower than that of case 1 without primary air. The gas has an important effect on the gas temperature.
temperature in case 3 is higher than that in case 2 and the
gas temperature in case 5 is higher than that in case 4.
This shows that, at the same oxygen concentration, with
the increasing of primary air temperature, the gas
temperature in the cooling zone increases, while in the
other zones, the gas temperature does not change
significantly. The variation of the gas temperature is
mainly due to the following two aspects: one hand, the
gas is more sensitive to the introduction of relatively cold
primary air, because of the specific heat of gas phase is
smaller, which causes the decreasing of the gas
temperature in the cooling zone. On the other hand, the
high-temperature coke particles or a few of volatile
matters released from the cokes combust with the air with
a small amount of oxygen in the cooling zone, then Figure3. Effect of primary air temperature on the coke temperature
produce high-temperature gas, which leads to the
increasing of the gas temperature. The gas temperature in Clearly, at the same oxygen mass concentration and
the cooling zone whether increases or decreases depends the same volumetric air injection rate, the chemical heat
on the above two results. Here, the former factor causing of air with the air temperature for 500 K is bigger than
the gas temperature decrease is called physical heat of that the air temperature for 800 K. the chemical heat in
primary air; the latter factor causing the gas temperature turn heats the cokes, which lead to the increment of the
increase is called chemical heat of primary air. When the coke temperature. So the coke temperature in case 4 is
oxygen concentration is lower, physical heat of primary higher than that in case 5. For cases 1 and 2 without the
air plays a main role in the gas temperature. With the oxygen, the factors influencing the coke temperature is
increase of air temperature, the physical heat of primary only the physical heat of air. It is apparent that the coke
air increases, the cooling effect on the gas is reduced. temperature in case 1 is lower than that in case 2. Above
Therefore, the primary air temperature is higher, the gas all, the physical heat of primary air has an obvious effect
temperature is higher, but is lower than that of without on the gas temperature, while the chemical heat of air has
primary air. an important effect on the coke temperature.

B. Effect of oxygen mass concentration of primary air

on the gas and coke temperature
It can be seen form Fig. 4, at the same temperature of
primary air, the gas temperature increases with the
increment of the oxygen mass concentration. In all cases,
the gas temperature is also lower than the case without air
(i.e., case 1). The reason is that, the bigger oxygen mass
concentration is, the more cokes or volatile matters
combust with the oxygen, the higher the chemical heat is


 produced, the higher the gas temperature becomes. That the kiln whole length, which can satisfy the require of the
is, the gas temperature in case 3, case 6 and case 4 is calcining quality of cokes.
higher in turn. For cokes, the results are the same as the
gas, as shown in Fig.5. It is worth noting that, if the V. CONCLUSIONS
oxygen mass concentration of primary air is over 0.23 (i.e.
normal air), the gas temperature is higher than the case According to the predicted results, it can be seen that,
without air. That is to say, oxygen mass concentration as the high-temperature and low-oxygen primary air is
increases the amount of coke burning. For the calcinning injected to the kiln at the kiln outlet, the gas temperature
process of the kiln, the coke burning should be kept to a in the cooling zone is lower than that normal air or
minimum. So the smaller the oxygen mass concentration without air. With the increasing of the temperature or the
of primary air, the litter the coke burning loss. oxygen concentration of primary air, the gas temperature
increases. But the coke temperature does not vary
monotonically with the air temperature, which is mainly
influenced by the oxygen concentration of primary air.
High-temperature gas produced in carbon rotary kiln
is used widely, but not used less for the low-temperature
gas. The gas from the waste heat boiler is about 533 K.
According to the above predicted results, it can be
injected to the kiln instead of the primary normal air. The
high-temperature gas mixing with the low-temperature
gas preheats the primary normal air, and flows to the kiln
with the preheated normal air. Or the low-temperature
gas is injected directly to the kiln. By the method, in the
cooling zone, there is a high-temperature and low-oxygen
or no oxygen atmosphere formed. As a result, coke
Figure4. Effect of oxygen mass concentration of primary air on burning loss can be reduced, actual yield of the kiln is
the gas temperature enhanced.

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