Emission Rate Estimation of Fuel Oil in A Combustion System Using Empirical Method

This work highlighted the prediction of the emission rates of the products of combustion using a fuel oil of specific gravity of 0.9. The two reaction pathways of complete combustion and incomplete combustion were used differently to ascertain the emission rates. Ultimate analysis were conducted on the fuel oil to show the percentage composition of elements using ASTM 3178 method for carbon and hydrogen, Kjedahl method for nitrogen, ASTM D1552 for sulphur and the differences used to compute that of oxygen. The estimated percentages of the various elements were the stoichiometrically used to compute the emissions rates at standard conditions. The basis of the computation was a fuel oil flow rate of 10Tonnes/h and the following emission rates were predicted for the complete combustion reaction pathway: 31,246Kg/h for CO₂, 65Kg/h for H₂O, 158Kg/h for NO₂ and 20Kg/h for SO₂ while 9,940Kg/h for CO₂, 15,623Kg/h for CO, 11,700Kg/h for H₂O, 11Kg/h for H₂S and 158Kg/h for NO₂ were predicted for the incomplete combustion pathway. The study noted that this predictive path should be taken where effective devices or logistics are not in place to measure emissions from combustion systems.