Experimental and numerical studies of carbon black natural gas furnace

The present study is concerned with measuring and simulating the formation process of carbon black in a natural gas furnace. Carbon black concentrations in the furnace have been measured by the gravimetric method. Fluent CFD software has been employed for numerical predictions. A chemical reaction formulation relates the production of the carbon black to the incomplete combustion and pyrolysis of natural gas as the parent fuel. The influence of feedstock flow rate and equivalence ratio on carbon black furnace output are investigated. The results show that for relatively low feedstock flow rates, most feedstock hydrocarbon burns to CO, while for higher feedstock flow rates the decomposition of feedstock and formation of solid carbon is the dominant process and has an important role in the production of carbon black. The comparison of calculated results against the experimental measurements shows good agreement