Resumo

RANGEL, Leonardo Paes  e  BUCHLER, Pedro Maurício. Study of nitrogen in the combustion of natural gas. Quím. Nova [online]. 2005, vol.28, n.6, pp. 957-963. ISSN 0100-4042.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-40422005000600005.

Nitrogen content in natural gas was studied in experimental and computational investigations to identify its influence on the emission level of exhaust gases from combustion facilities. Changes in natural gas composition with different N₂ concentrations may result from introducing a new source gas into the system. An industrial burner fired at 75 kW, housed in a laboratory-scale furnace, was employed for runs where the natural gas/N₂ proportion was varied. The exhaust and in-furnace measurements of temperature and gas concentrations were performed for different combustion scenarios, varying N₂ content from 1-10 %v. Results have shown that the contamination of natural gas with nitrogen reduced the peak flame temperature, the concentration of unstable species, the NO_X emission level and the heat transfer rate to the furnace walls, resulting from the recombination reactions.

Palavras-chave : natural gas; combustion; nitrogen.