What are the components of a furnace?  

The principle components are

1.Source of energy

a. Fossil fuel: For fossil fuel one requires burner for efficient mixing of fuel and air. Arrangement of burner is important.

b. Electric energy: Resistance heating, induction heating or arc heating.

c. Chemical energy: Exothermic reactions

ii. Suitable refractory material: Refractory design is important. Thermal enclosure of the furnace is designed and constructed keeping in view the requirements. For example refractory facing the thermal enclosure must have high refractoriness, chemically inert etc. Whereas refractory facing the surrounding must have low thermal conductivity to minimize heat losses.

iii. Heat exchanger:   Heat exchanger is becoming now as part of the fossil fuel fired furnaces in order to recover and reuse the heat of POC. Heat of POC can be used either external to furnace by installing a heat exchanger or internally by recirculation the POC within the furnace.

iii. Instrumentation and control: Furnaces are equipped with POC analyzer and temperature control.