Abstract
Natural gas furnaces are the most common space heating equipment in the U.S. residential and commercial building markets. However, current residential natural gas condensing furnaces generate substantial acidic condensate as well as significant emissions of sulfur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC), and methane (CH4) contributing to environmental degradation of air, water, and soil. This paper describes a novel solution to reduce the environmental impact of natural gas condensing furnaces based on the technology of monolithic acidic gas reduction (AGR) catalyst for SOx trapping, NOx redox to nitrogen, and oxidation of formic acid, CO, HC, and CH4. This technology offers a new condensing natural gas furnace with both ultra-clean flue gas and neutral condensate. A prototype of the condensing gas furnace with the AGR component is demonstrated to have condensate with pH = 7, NOx emissions of 1–2 ng/J, and an annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) of 96%. The AGR component and the AGR-enabled furnace were tested for long-term reliability and durability, as well as for SOx storage and regeneration activity. In addition, this paper provides new data on measurements of the specific acidic gas content in natural gas condensing furnaces.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 123068 |
| Journal | Energy |
| Volume | 243 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 15 2022 |
Funding
This work was sponsored by the U.S. DOE Building Technologies Office. This research used resources at the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We also thank Drs. Calvin Thomas and Lingshi Wang who provided helps in testing. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).This work was sponsored by the U.S. DOE Building Technologies Office. This research used resources at the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We also thank Drs. Calvin Thomas and Lingshi Wang who provided helps in testing. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle , LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).
Keywords
- Acidic condensate
- Acidic gas reduction
- Catalyst
- Furnace
- NOx emissions
