Problems in China’s burner industry

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1. The quality and performance of products need further improvement. At present, a large portion of the burners in use in China come from within the country, while some are imported from developed countries such as those in Europe and the United States. In China, progress in this area started late due to constraints imposed by the country’s energy supply structure. Coupled with insufficient accumulated experience, a lack of awareness regarding product research and development innovation as well as talent cultivation, the products developed in the early stages were mainly copies of foreign products, often being of a \"workshop-style\" assembly type. Moreover, the absence of unified performance testing standards and product standards to guide development made it difficult to ensure product quality; there were issues both with regard to the sophistication of the burners and their safety. For example, in order to cut costs and maximize profits in the early stages, some manufacturers failed to obtain the necessary safety certifications for certain safety components (such as shut-off valves, ignition devices, control and regulation devices), resulting in malfunctions. Some burners did not meet the required safety standards, and in some cases, the combustion controllers lacked the necessary safety control mechanisms. As for the operation curves provided by manufacturers, those supplied by some manufacturers either had not been tested by accredited testing institutions or failed to specify the criteria used to determine those curves, thereby misleading users. All these have severely affected the safe and economic operation of fuel/gas boilers and related equipment in our country. China’s first comprehensive burner testing laboratory has filled a gap in the field of burner testing in the country, providing a platform for domestic burner and boiler manufacturers as well as research institutions to carry out product development and technical research, thereby significantly raising the level of technical research in this area in China. Thirdly, thanks to the challenges posed by the market and continuous improvements in understanding, domestic burner manufacturers have made great progress in terms of product quality, technological development, and the recruitment and training of talent; some of their products are even exported abroad. Although foreign products generally ensure quality and are technologically advanced in terms of energy conservation and environmental protection, they still present certain problems when used in China. First, since the pollution emission limits set in China are more lenient than those in Europe, and domestic companies pay far less attention to energy conservation and environmental protection compared to their European counterparts, they tend to ignore technical factors such as emissions and energy efficiency when choosing burner products, focusing instead on reducing prices. This actually hinders the entry of expensive, advanced burners from abroad into the Chinese market. Meanwhile, as environmental regulations in Europe become increasingly strict, local manufacturers there continue to develop new products. Second, the design systems of many foreign burner manufacturers are based on foreign boiler specifications, with the range of thermal power options for burners being determined accordingly. In China, however, boiler manufacturers usually produce the boiler bodies themselves and only import the burners. As a result, there are often mismatches between the burner’s operating parameters, flame shape, and the boiler’s resistance and size, which can lead to problems such as improper operation or difficulty in tuning the burner, and even accidents that cause losses to users. Additionally, this reduces the boiler’s energy efficiency. Third, due to the variety of fuels available in China, as well as differences in fuel standards between domestic and foreign countries and variations in how these standards are implemented, some burners designed according to foreign fuel standards do not function properly when used in China. Their advantages in terms of reliability, safety, and energy efficiency are significantly reduced, and in some cases, accidents occur, failing to meet production requirements, wasting energy, and polluting the environment. 2. The capability for product research and development needs to be strengthened urgently, by drawing on the advanced technologies available abroad, especially in Europe. There has been a long history of research and development in gas and fuel application technologies, including industrial burners; many burner manufacturers have their own independent laboratories, and they have developed specialized testing equipment and methods. Additionally, techniques such as numerical simulation are utilized in the development of new products. In China, domestic enterprises started late in this field, and due to issues such as a shortage of talent and limited funding, few of them possess the capability to develop independent products. Since combustion is a highly practical discipline, whether it is basic research on fuel/gas combustion technology, the development of burner products, the evaluation of the comprehensive performance of burners by manufacturing units or testing institutions, or even the operation of burners, all rely on the establishment of testing methods and capabilities for burners, as well as the application of advanced technologies. Furthermore, given the wide variety of fuels available in our country, especially various non-standard fuels such as coalbed methane, coke oven gas, producer gas, heavy oil, refinery residue oil, and crude oil containing water, the vast majority of domestic burner manufacturers and research institutions lack the necessary testing facilities. As a result, they choose fuels based solely on their calorific value, without taking into account the composition of those fuels. Additionally, they use conventional fuel pipelines and process arrangements designed for standard burners, which leads to safety hazards, environmental pollution, and fuel waste. Therefore, to truly develop burners suitable for China’s national conditions and fuel characteristics, it is necessary to establish the R&D capabilities and methods for such products. Although China currently has a comprehensive burner testing system, and some domestic burner manufacturers have established testing platforms for product development purposes, overall there is still a gap compared to developed countries. For example, the requirements regarding testing equipment, the layout of measurement points, testing methods, and the testing environment are not uniformly standardized, which leads to significant errors in test results as well as poor repeatability and comparability. The low precision of testing instruments makes it impossible to detect subtle changes in certain combustion parameters. The testing procedures for burners under different combustion and control conditions are not specific enough or comprehensive enough. It is also not yet possible to fully simulate in the laboratory various extreme abnormal conditions that may occur in actual operations, such as high or low temperature environments, dusty environments, corrosive environments, low-pressure environments, changes in fuel properties, frequent start-ups and shut-downs, and long-term operation. 3. Regulatory standards need to be further supplemented and improved. Due to the inherent properties of fuel/gas – their flammability and explosiveness – extremely strict safety requirements are imposed on such burners. Additionally, given the scarcity of oil and gas resources and the fact that their combustion products can pollute the environment, many countries around the world have established mandatory requirements in this regard. The fully automatic burners that have been widely used in recent years integrate multiple disciplines such as fluid dynamics, combustion science, thermodynamics, automatic detection technology, and program control technology; as a result, many **have established separate (or related) regulations and/or standards for fuel/gas burners. Typical examples include: in Europe, EN 267 \"Forced-air fuel burners (definitions, requirements, testing and marking)\” and EN 676 \"Fully automatic forced-air gas burners\"; in the United States, UL 795 \"Gas heating equipment for commercial/industrial use\", NFPA 8501 \"Operating standards for single-burner boilers\", and NFPA 8502 \"Explosion protection standards for multi-burner boiler furnaces\"; in Japan, there are the \"Safety technical specifications for gas boiler combustion equipment\" and the \"Safety technical guidelines for gas-consuming equipment such as simple boilers\", among others. In recent years, China has also formulated and issued various regulations and standards related to burners, such as TSG ZB 001 \"Safety Technical Rules for Fuel/Gas Burners\", TSG ZB 002 \"Type Test Rules for Fuel/Gas Burners\", and GB/T 19839—2005 \"General Technical Requirements for Industrial Fuel/Gas Burners\". However, compared with developed countries abroad, there is a significant gap in terms of both depth and breadth. For example, it is urgent to address in these regulations and standards how to help burner manufacturers choose appropriate control methods, burner types (including air mixing methods, atomization methods, atomization media, etc.), as well as suitable process designs for fuel supply systems (including fuel heating methods, pump selection, shut-off valve selection, and component layout) – especially considering the wide variety of fuels/gases available in China, including those that are not standard. In addition, the design of fuel/gas boilers in China still relies heavily on experience and foreign products; there are no thermal calculation methods (or standards) to guide boiler manufacturers in designing such boilers, nor are there any technical guidelines to assist them in selecting burners. Therefore, it is necessary to establish relevant technical standards as soon as possible. Moreover, due to the functional, structural, and operational characteristics of burner products, their safety performance, thermal performance (energy consumption), and environmental performance (pollutant emissions) constitute the overall performance of these products. These three elements do not exist independently but influence and interact with one another, and sometimes they even conflict with each other. Thus, to resolve these conflicts appropriately and meet the comprehensive performance requirements for burners, coordination among relevant domestic departments (responsible for safety, environmental protection, and energy efficiency) is needed to develop genuine methods (or standards) for comprehensively evaluating burner products. 4. Market behavior needs further regulation. For a long time, due to the late start of China’s burner industry, its weak foundation, lack of capacity for independent innovation, as well as insufficient financial resources and technical expertise, domestic burner manufacturers have been at a disadvantage compared to foreign competitors. Coupled with a lack of industry regulation, these manufacturers engage in price competition among themselves in the domestic market, leading to chaotic pricing conditions. Struggling to survive, they would face the risk of going bankrupt if there are macroeconomic fluctuations that result in a decline in market demand. Therefore, there is an urgent need for industry self-regulation, the establishment of appropriate norms for market behavior, the curbing of unfair competition, a complete transformation of corporate profit models, and the upgrading of the burner industry, so as to promote the sustainable development of domestic burner products in a direction that is safe, environmentally friendly, and efficient.