GB902856A - Improvements relating to apparatus for the preparation of cooled combustion gases especially for use in metallurgical and other processes - Google Patents

Abstract

902,856. Cooling gases by direct contact with liquids. ASSOCIATED ELECTRICAL INDUSTRIES Ltd. Feb. 20, 1961 [March 25, 1960], No. 10702/60. Class 64 (1). [Also in Group XII] In apparatus for preparing substantially oxygen-free, water-cooled gases for use, for example, in metallurgical processes, the hot combustion gases are initially cooled in a cooling chamber by direct contact with water and then passed through a second cooling stage comprising heat-exchange surfaces arranged inside the chamber wherein water vapour is condensed, the condensate being returned for use in the initial cooling stage. In the form shown in Fig. 1 the apparatus consists of a combustion chamber in which a fuel containing hydrocarbons and/or hydrogen, for example, gases such as town gas, propane or acetylene or liquids such as ethyl alcohol, benzene, toluene, petrol or fuel oil, is burnt without an appreciable excess of air, the combustion products being injected downwardly into a mass of water in a sump. Non-condensable gases and water vapour flow upwardly from the sump past a heat-exchange coil, water vapour being condensed and returning to the sump whilst the cool product gas discharges from the top of the heat-exchanger column. In a modification, Fig. 2 (not shown), water is sprayed into the hot combustion gases, a pump supplying the sprays with condensate from a sump arranged below the heat-exchanger column.