Abstract
The authors have devised a small scale, new type burner and made an experiment on acetylene formation from methane by partial combustion.
The feature of the burner lies in enclosing the premixed methane-oxygen flame with hydrogen-oxygen or oxygen diluted by nitrogen diffusion flame on porous wall through which the oxydant is injected, thereby minimizing the heat loss from the premixed flame to be reduced and, at the same time, obtaining an efficient heat recovery and cooling of the wall material.
The dimensions of the burners used in this study are 14mm in diameter and 110, 160 and 260mm in length. Through measurement of gaseous product at the exit of the burner, it is found that 30 to 39% of carbon in off gas is distributed to acetylene. Therefore, at least the same order of carbon distribution to acetylene as in commercial burner is obtained in a very small burner. Although dilution of oxygen injected with nitrogen reduces the acetylene concentration in off gas, the carbon distributed to acetylene remains essentially constant so far as N2/O2 volume ratio ranges between 0 to 2. This means an efficient cooling of the wall material is possible by replacement of a part of oxygen with air without reducing the yield of acetylene.
