Why is furnace oil for burners blended with diesel?
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20/08/2020
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Sridhar Balakrishnan, Bharat Oman Refineries Limited , laksrid@yahoo.com
Furnace oils are blended with diesel or other middle distillates to reduce the viscosity of furnace oil for better atomisation of the fuel when used in burners or any other combustion system. Another additional advantage to an extent is that it will also reduce the sulphur content of the furnace .
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13/08/2020
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Eric Vetters, ProCorr Consulting Services, ewvetters@yahoo.com
Normally I would expect it would be to cut the viscosity of the fuel oil so that it atomizes better for more complete combustion and less soot formation. It's also possible that it could be to help lower the sulfur content to reduce SOX emissions.
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12/08/2020
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Jake Gotham, InSite Technical Services, jake.gotham@insitetechnical.com
To get good combustion, the oil needs to be dispersed into very fine droplets (‘atomised’) as it passes through the burner tip. The effectiveness of this process is heavily dependent on the viscosity of the oil, with lower viscosity giving better atomisation and cleaner combustion. If the fuel oil is a high-viscosity material (e.g. residue or vacuum gasoil), it is usually necessary to do two things to reduce viscosity sufficiently:
1. Reduce the viscosity by blending with diesel / gasoil / kerosene.
2. Heat the oil.
There is an opportunity to trade these two options off against each other. If you have the ability to reliably deliver the oil to the burner at higher temperature, you will be able to reduce the amount of diesel blended into the fuel. Some refineries have eliminated blending distillate into fuel oil by increasing the oil temperature, but this comes with some operational headaches. For instance, in any situation where the flow stops, the temperature will reduce to whatever level the heat-tracing can maintain. Relighting the furnace will probably result in poor combustion. At best this gives a sooty flame and smoke from the stack. At worst it leaves unburnt fuel in the firebox, afterburning in the convection section and potentially an unsafe condition.
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