Petroleum coke is a byproduct of the oil refining industry and is widely used in electrolytic aluminum, carbon products and fuel industries. Due to its high moisture content (about 8%~15% water content when leaving the factory), it must be dried (reduced to ≤2%) to meet downstream use requirements. Traditional petroleum coke drying usually uses a rotary dryer or a fluidized bed dryer, and the burner is the core heat source equipment, and its performance directly affects the drying efficiency, energy consumption and system stability.

Problem

Shanxi carbon material production enterprises use natural gas direct-fired hot air furnaces to match petroleum coke dryers, but face the following problems:

1. Unstable temperature control: Traditional burners have poor adjustment capabilities and large fluctuations in hot air temperature, resulting in partial overdrying or agglomeration of petroleum coke.

2. High fuel cost: Natural gas prices fluctuate greatly, and the energy consumption cost of drying a ton of coke accounts for more than 40%, squeezing corporate profits.

3. Excessive emissions: When combustion is incomplete, NOx and CO emissions exceed the standard, facing the risk of environmental penalties.

Optimization solution for burners

The company upgraded to a fully automatic multi-fuel burner (compatible with natural gas/petroleum coke powder/biomass pellets), and its core advantages are as follows:

1. Precise temperature control to improve drying uniformity

Adopting variable frequency regulation + proportional combustion technology, real-time matching of the heat load of the dryer, hot air temperature fluctuations are controlled within ±5℃ to avoid overheating and carbonization of petroleum coke.

2. Multi-fuel adaptation to reduce energy consumption costs

The burner can flexibly switch between natural gas and petroleum coke powder (using dried coke powder as fuel), reducing fuel costs by 35%.

3. Clean combustion to meet environmental protection requirements

Low nitrogen combustion technology (staged combustion + flue gas recirculation), NOx emissions <80mg/m³, in line with national ultra-low emission standards.

Results

Drying efficiency improved: petroleum coke processing capacity increased from 12 tons/hour to 15 tons/hour, and unit energy consumption decreased by 22%.

Environmental compliance: emission data is uploaded to the supervision platform in real time, and environmental protection acceptance is passed at one time.

Stable quality: The qualified rate of moisture content of petroleum coke finished products increased from 88% to 99.5%, and the customer complaint rate was zero.

Conclusion

As the "heart" of the petroleum coke drying system, the technology upgrade of the burner can significantly improve energy efficiency, reduce costs and solve environmental protection pain points. This case proves that the use of intelligent multi-fuel burners can not only meet the stringent industrial drying needs, but also achieve a circular economy through fuel flexibility and waste heat recovery, providing sustainable solutions for high-energy-consuming industries.