A Discussion and Economic Analysis of Oxygen-Enriched Combustion Technology in Metallurgic Furnace

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the application of oxygen-enriched combustion in metallurgic furnaces. Based on the knowledge of combustion and air separation, some advantages of oxygen-enriched combustion are carried on. In this work, the relation between energy efficiency and oxygen enrichment is presented, the result showed that furnaces can reach more than 10% energy saving by properly applying oxygen-enriched combustion technology. A system which combines the oxygen-enriched combustion technology and the CO2 capture with membrane separation technology is evaluated. In this system, the energy cost for CO2 capture can reach 0.9GJ/(t CO2). Finally, some problems that still need further study are also discussed.