Oxide and silicon carbide burner parts for industrial furnaces, fired heaters and flares, including hydrogen firing.
Every start and stop heats the tip in seconds and cools it again.
Alloy scales, thick tiles crack.
Ceramic flare tips and burner nozzles survive flame and thermal cycling when they are thin enough to heat evenly and made from a grade that resists oxidation and the fuel atmosphere: alumina or mullite in conventional firing, sintered, nitride bonded or reaction bonded silicon carbide where thermal shock and corrosion are severe, and low silica alumina or silicon carbide in hydrogen rich flames. Blasch supplies burner nozzles, pilot tips and flare tips in these grades to burner makers and plant operators, as new parts or as replacements for alloy and castable designs.
Many furnaces still carry burner tiles cast as thick blocks into a fiber lined wall. The block outlasts the fiber around it, but not the thermal cycling at its face.
The same burner that ran for years on natural gas can wear out its tile within a much shorter time on hydrogen, because the fuel attacks the silica that held the tile together.
Fired heaters and furnaces are moving toward hydrogen fuel to cut CO2 emissions, up to 100% hydrogen in some units. In these strongly reducing flames, silica in the refractory is reduced: SiO2 gives off volatile SiO and water, and the burner tile loses its bond over time.
Non-oxide ceramics such as silicon carbide usually do better in these conditions. Alumina with low or no silica is a reliable alternative where an oxide is preferred. Blasch has developed grades for hydrogen combustion in severe reducing environments and selects them with the burner design and the fuel mix.
Pilot and flare tips sit in the open flame and in the weather, often for years between inspections. Ceramic tips resist oxidation far better than alloy steel tips and in many cases cost less. They are cast with flanges and bores that fit the existing pilot or tip assembly.
| Grade | Where it fits |
|---|---|
| Alumina, mullite, cordierite | conventional gas and oil firing, thermal cycling |
| Sintered and recrystallized silicon carbide | high temperature, thermal shock, hydrogen firing |
| Nitride, oxide and alumina bonded silicon carbide | erosion and corrosion in dirty fuels and flare service |
| Reaction bonded silicon carbide | dense wear faces, mixer and burner tubes |
Burner and mixer tubes with precise flanges and thin walls are cast in the same oxidation and reduction resistant grades. Silicon carbide grades
Burner parts follow the fired equipment in refining, chemicals and hydrogen production.
Roof burners of steam methane reformers, next to the flue gas tunnels at the furnace floor.
Fired heaters, flares, carbon black reactors and titanium dioxide burners with corrosive fuels.
Ceramic nozzles that guide molten metal into the atomizing gas for powder production.
Yes, in fiber lined furnaces a low mass nozzle can be retrofitted into the opening of the thick block, in round or slotted form.
Silicon carbide or alumina with little or no silica, because hydrogen reduces silica and weakens the part.
Often not. Ceramic tips resist oxidation better than alloy steel and in many cases cost less.
Yes. Blasch supplies burner OEMs as well as plant operators who replace parts in existing burners.
Send the burner type, the fuel mix and the dimensions of the current tile or tip. A Blasch engineer proposes the grade and the shape.
