Self-regenerative furnace for melting non-ferrous materials and heat treatment

According to GASURE´s investigations, the combustion equipment used by Colombian companies working with high temperature processes in many cases is obsolete. Motivated by this, in 2009 the group carried out the manufacturing of the crucible furnace CRISOREG-AL200 jointly with Empresas Publicas de Medellín and SENA.

The self-regenerative crucible furnace CRISOREG-AL200 uses gaseous fuels as natural gas, LNG, biogas among others. Equipped with a flame safety control system, a silicon carbide crucible, an air supply system, a hydraulic system to facilitate the casting pouring, a self-regenerative burner and a flue. The burner possesses two combustion zones located on the crucible´s sides, working in cycles, in one cycle one of the zones works in a combustion mode whereas the other works in a regenerative mode. This is very important, since regeneration contributes to heat recovery utilizing a solid material (ceramic matrix) absorbing waste heat of combustion gases to subsequently, in the following cycle transfer the heat stored by said material to the combustion air thus pre-heating it. This way recovering waste heat, with which the furnace efficiency is increased, while generating significant savings in fuel consumption.

The furnace is designed to contain a crucible with a capacity of 200 kg of aluminum; the regenerative burner has a power of 120 kW allowing specific consumptions of fuel of 800 kWh/ton and cold fusion of 95 kg/h. The furnace is instrumented with an automatic control system allowing the equipment´s autonomous work under minimal supervision, also a tilting system for pouring the casting off the crucible is included. This piece of equipment may offer the following advantages:

1. Fuel savings close to 50 percent (the savings in fuel consumption depend on a manufacturing factory operation conditions basis).

 2. CO and NOx emissions to environment of 100 ppm.

 3. Combustion products exit temperature between 60 and 120 °C.

 4. Average temperature on the furnace´s external wall between 70 and 100 °C.