High Efficiency Heat Transfer

At the heart of TRI’s indirectly heated steam reforming technology is a proprietary heat exchanger termed pulsed heater which supplies the heat required for the steam reforming reactions. The main advantage of indirect gasification is that the product gas or syngas is not contaminated by combustion products or diluted by nitrogen, and thus is suitable for economical and efficient conversion into valuable products. By creating an oscillating flow field inside the tubes, the pulsed heater has enhanced heat transfer from the combustion products inside the tubes to the fluidized bed external to the tubes; this offers a significant advantage over conventional fire-tube heat exchanger thereby reducing the size and cost of the steam reformer vessel, lowering the fuel requirement to fire the heat exchanger and improving the syngas yield.

  

TRI’s pulsed heater enhances heat transfer effectiveness, process thermal efficiency and syngas yield and quality.

  

Benefits

  • TRI’s pulsed heater is characterized by high combustion efficiency and low emissions.
  • TRI’s pulsed heater has been proven at commercial scale.
  • TRI’s pulsed heater is fuel flexible and minimizes environmental impact.
  • TRI’s pulsed heater has no mechanical moving parts and generates a pressure boost to reduce fan size and power consumption.

Results

TRI’s pulse heaters have demonstrated successful operation in commercial scale steam reformers for processing black liquor to generate syngas and recover chemicals.

Model Types

TRI has commercialized a first generation pulsed heater design and is in the process of developing a second generation pulsed heater.

Related Video(s)

How The Pulse Combustion Heater Works