Propane Burner Modification

Franco32

Franco32

Joined
Dec 11, 2007
Messages
122
I need some feedback from anyone who wants to offer. I have a Reil type burner I made for a forge made from a 7.5 gallon air bubble. I wanted to up the output without having to add another burner to it. Has anyone ever looked into adding a separate input of Oxygen in the burner tube? Say using a regulator setup from a oxygen/acetylene setup. I don't want to use acetylene. I just want to add say a couple more pounds of Oxygen into the mix to increase burning efficiency. Start my burner and add the Oxygen. I have the parts and thought I might just go and blow myself to pieces unless anyones got any thoughts on my self destructive behavior..:p
 
I tried it but it didn't help. My burners have fans and I can push more air than fuel so extra O2 is no help. Plus it could really be bad for oxidation of your steel
 
The way burners add oxygen is with a fan. Just adding a little oxygen from a tank( without a fan) would do little. Adding a lot of oxygen would help, but would cost a lot of $$$

Air is about 20% oxygen, by volume. If your blower for a forge runs at 40CFM, it is supplying 8 cubic feet of oxygen a MINUTE. If you supplied the same amount of oxygen from a tank, you would burn up two big tanks (280s) of oxygen every hour.

Air is free, and fans are cheap. Convert to a blown burner.
Stacy
 
Yes, in my case as stated I have a fan and am able to have complete combustion of the fuel supply with the O2 supplied by the fan and atmosphere. Adding more O2 just creates a O2 rich atmosphere. Bad. As Stacy says why burn up expensive bottled O2 when the stuff is the atmosphere is still free. (I figure they will tax it someday). Now acetylene as a fuel might help kick up the btus, but it is more expensive than propane.
 
Thanks guys...I kind of figured since I had everything (hense I wouldn't need to spend any money) it wouldn't work. After I posted my thread, I did a little googleing and found a site that did a study in France on introducing oxygen into the propane stream to increase output without increasing propane consumption. The burners still pulled surrounding air but also O. They found they could produce a cleaner burn, they made crystal, used less fuel because of increased efficiency. The only visible difference noticed was the flame cone was shorter with the add on Oxygen. All their burners were air/propane intitially and they converted over to the Oxygen/air/propane mix and saved 59% on fuel use. I don't know what they did different, but I wouldn't mind finding out...Today I'm going to build a new burner. I'll post some pictures of it running if I don't get snowed out!! Thanks again guys....Gary
 
Maybe there is a way to burn the propane more completely and cleaner. One money saver is to preheat your burners air supply. I have stuck a torch tip in a extra inlet I made in my burner tube and started cranking up the O2 and never saw the pyrometer go up a bit. There maybe a way to control and mix everything to save a few bucks on propane. You would think that the propane savings would have to be pretty great to offset the additional O2 cost. I get my welding gasses at a big discount because of my work place and they still cost.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top