Industrial compact ceramic finned-plate recuperator. Annual report Aug 82-Jul 83
Murray G. Coombs, Hal J. Strumpf, D. M. Kotchick · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 1983
The purpose of this project is to develop a ceramic finned-plate recuperator to recover and utilize the waste heat contained in high-temperature industrial furnace flue gases. Thousands of natural gas-fired industrial furnaces operate at temperatures in excess of 2000F. Of the energy used in these furnaces, only a small fraction provides actual heating of the products. Most of the energy is contained in the high-temperature flue gases, which normally escape into the atmosphere. This energy can be recovered by use of a recuperator (i.e., heat exchanger) wherein the heat energy in the flue gases is recycled to the furnace by heating the cold incoming combustion-air stream. For gas-fired systems, thermal efficiency improvements of up to 50 percent are possible using high-temperature recuperators.