Boiler Environmental Protection Agency Compliance
Companies are frequently faced with stricter environmental compliance requirements such as the (CAA CMS) Clean Air Act Stationary Source Compliance Monitoring Strategy or the (MACT) Maximum Achievable Control Technology and often need to have their boilers tuned to meet them. The MACT deadline for compliance is January 31st, 2016 and there is wide belief that this version of the rule will be enforced. Companies need to review their current systems and address necessary burner retrofit/upgrades or
boiler control system design upgrades before the deadline if they run primarily on coal, oil or other biomass fuels sometimes classified as fossil fuels. Time is running out.
See the
US Environmental Protection Agency
FAQs for details.
It requires a highly skilled boiler field service engineer to diagnose the reasons for failing emission compliance standards. Anything from short circuiting or flame impingement to simply improper tuning parameters will easily cause a boiler to fail testing.
High CO readings will most likely be the reason for emissions failure and it is commonly caused by the boiler flame coming in contact with the furnace walls. This can be from an improper flame pattern or hole in the refractory causing draft or pressure to push or suck the flame in contact.
What actually causes the high CO is that the boiler tubes will quench the flame before it can fully burn the fuel. Testing combustion from different spots on the furnace and comparing them to the stack readings can help zero in on the cause.
Other less common causes are improper flame pattern from too much air flow which also indicates with high excess oxygen readings. This harder to diagnose issue is from too much air flowing through the burner and preventing the proper zone mixing to take place.
Some burner designs are more prone to this happening than others.
Collins Combustion recommends having boilers
combustion tuned annually to keep them in top running condition. We offer a complete service package that will insure our customers stay within EPA requirements.
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