On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 09:49:21 -0500, "Bob Chilcoat"
wrote:

Don,

I think you've identified why throttling back the gas pressure produces that
irritating contaminant. I hadn't thought about NO2 (although is should
have, I've been involved with N2O for years in my anesthesia work -- related
oxide of nitrogen). It makes perfect sense that with less gas and a fixed
airflow, the temperature should rise. I guess there's an optimal
temperature range that minimizes CO and NO2 production. Now I have to
figure out what that is. Thanks.

Right, Bob. Combustion products NOx and CO are like radio buttons:
reduce one, raise the other. Some industrial burner controls use
oxygen sensors in the flue gas to control fuel-air mix to meet
standards for NOx and CO emissions. I think auto engines do that as
well, now that they have engine control computers. O2 content
of flue gas seems to be a useful indicator of combustion condx. It's
an indirect and inferential measurement, but it seems to work. Oxy
sensors are cheap, and they're robust in a fluegas environment.

I'm no expert in the field but you should be able to find data from
ASHRAE. If the process was oil combustion I am sure you could get
data from Dr. Tom Butcher at Brookhaven Nat'l Labs. You might try
pinging Dr. Ulrich Bonne at Honeywell Labs in Plymouth, MN. Ulrich
probably knows as much about gas combustion as anyone on the planet.


I don't know if he'd respond or not, but he's a good guy so he might.
Tell him Dr. Foreman referred you to him. That might just evoke a
very informative response because he knows damned well I'm not a
PhD and he purely hated it when I was assigned to conduct a critical
tech review of his work once upon a time..... G