Cyclone Furnace

A cyclone furnace is a type of coal combustor used in large industrial boilers, developed by Babcock and Wilcox in 1942 to burn coal grades unsuited to ordinary pulverized coal combustion. Crushed coal and primary air enter a horizontally mounted cylindrical barrel through a front burner, while secondary air enters tangentially to create a swirling gas pattern that reaches temperatures of about fifteen hundred to sixteen hundred degrees Celsius, hot enough to keep slag molten so it can drain through bottom traps, and tertiary air completes combustion further downstream while limiting nitrogen oxide emissions. The design offers lower fuel preparation costs, a more compact furnace, less fly ash and slagging, and fuel flexibility, letting it burn bituminous coal, lignite, anthracite, wood chips, petroleum coke and even recycled tires.