Prospects and advantages of using metal grid catalytic reactors for gas heating systems and household heating appliances

This article aims to acquaint as many specialists in the field of heat engineering and thermal power engineering as possible with the possibilities and advantages of metal-mesh catalytic heaters developed at the Institute of Catalysis SB RAS. They are shown to be fundamentally different from catalytic heaters in which ceramic or glass-fiber structures are used as carriers of oxidation catalysts. Practical examples of the implementation of this technology on the example of a hot water boiler, infrared heaters and other small-sized household appliances are given. It was shown experimentally that the supplied gas is oxidized completely, and the efficiency of the laboratory, even unoptimized sample of hot water boiler determined by the inlet and outlet water temperature is not lower than 85 % in the range from 15 to 100 % of nominal capacity and 93 % in the low-power mode. The presented technology enables smooth regulation of the heater output within the whole range from 1.5 to 10 kW with power overlap factor of about 7.