According to the American Bakers Association, there are more than 1,000 wholesale baking facilities and baking suppliers nationwide. A typical mid-size bakery has three production lines and consumes about 7 to 8 million cubic feet of natural gas per month. The United States baking industry consumes approximately 0.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas annually and produces more than 3 million tons of carbon dioxide. Flue gas recirculation—an approach where a portion of exhaust gas (which is laden with carbon dioxide) is mixed with the combustion air—can be used to reduce the nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions produced by industrial ribbon burners or other burners with partially premixed flames. This was demonstrated in a full-scale wholesale bakery, confirming that the technology can meet new, stricter regulations limiting NOX emissions without expensive modifications to the burner systems. The demonstrated advanced low NOX ribbon burner combustion system achieved greater than 50 percent reduction in NOX production in laboratory and pilot-scale testing, and 25 percent reduction in full-scale technology demonstration, with potential for greater reductions with further burner tuning. Additionally, there is potential for fuel savings of 5 percent or more through preheating of combustion air inherent in the system or other heating services at the bakery site. Adoption of this technology could lead to significant annual reduction of pollutant emissions from the ribbon burner installed base, retaining and increasing demand for natural gas-fired ribbon burner systems and technologies in the baking oven, flame treatment, gas-fired drying, and process heating industries while meeting strict air quality regulations.
