Started in 1988 as spare parts supplier for combustion equipment, Combustion Concepts Pvt Ltd today has emerged as a single source for supplying complete package in combustion systems. In conversation with IPF, Shreedhar Kalyanshetti, Director, Combution Concepts Pvt Ltd, explains importance of combustion equipment and tracks the demand trend in the market.

 

Kindly brief us about Combustion Concepts and its businesses.  How has been the journey of the company since its inception in 1988?

 

Combustion Concepts, which has state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Mumbai, specialises in the field of combustion equipment. The management consists of technocrats with more than 5 decades of experience in the field of thermal equipment’s. Our industrial burners have been installed & operating at thousands of plants across India (& world) and proven to be reliable combustion systems. Further to that, our strict internal QC procedures and prompt customer support has enabled us in having large base of satisfied customers. World over energy costs are increasing and more stringent environment regulations are being introduced. Accordingly, we have kept pace in continuous innovation & introduced new products to provide improved savings in energy bills for customers & adhering to environmental compliances.

 

We are the first choice with most of the original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in India requiring combustion equipment for various fuels like oil, natural gas, biogas, producer gas, etc. We make oil, gas, biogas & producer gas burners and associated equipment for industrial process heating plants. Our burner capacity range is 0.2 – 20 million KCals/hr (230-23000 KW/hr). 

 

Our company has in-house research and development department and continually improves the designs. Combustion Concepts products are well accepted in the industry and are sold both in India and international markets.  

 

Which end-user industries are the leading users of your products?

 

Our products are widely used in industries such as asphalt, automotive, ceramic/glass, cement, chemical process, food, fertilizer, furniture, milk processing (dairy products), power regeneration, wastes treatment, pharmaceutical, steel, sugar/distillery, textile, tyre, etc.

 

How is the demand for combustion equipment in India? What are the factors driving the demand?

 

The generation of heat for industrial processes accounts for the largest proportion of energy demand in industry and manufacturing. Virtually any manufacturing business is dependent on industrial heating.

 

Some of the applications where our combustion equipment’s are in great demand are steam boilers (smoke tube boilers, water tube boilers, hot water boilers), thermic fluid heaters, hot air generators, rotary kilns, furnaces & ovens, driers, and oil treatment process (such as ‘heater treaters’ for primary oil/water separation in crude oil containing residual amounts of water and unwanted salts etc).

 

India is a developing country and there is rapid growth in industrial sectors. Most of the industries have process heating applications which are driving the demand for combustion equipment’s northwards. 

 

Combustion Concepts is involved in designing burners for various fuels. Which types of burners are more in demand? And why? 

 

Demand for industrial burners of various fuels has been very dynamic in nature, as fuel prices are fluctuating. Some of the trends can be as stated below:

 

 

Government is focusing on lowering carbon emission. How can industrial burner suppliers help the government in this direction?

 

World over energy costs are increasing and more stringent environment regulations are being enacted by governments all over the world. In line with these, we have believed in continuous innovation & introduced new products to provide improved savings in energy bills for customers and adhering to environmental compliances.

 

Our earlier standard burners were with mechanical linkage system for fuel and air supply systems driven by a single servo motor, which was the normal practice in India. This system has lower reproducibility of settings because of wear and tear and play (tolerances). 

 

Our company with continuous improvements and in-house research and development, from year 2015 introduced “Digital Industrial Burners” where the “Electronically Regulated Burners” with separate electronic actuators for better controlling of fuel supply and air supply, all controlled by a Burner Management System (BMS) with an indicating and setting display unit. 

 

Further to above, we are now launching “Digital Industrial Burners with HMI” at affordable costs which are at par with any of the reputed international industrial burner suppliers.

 

Above developments have helped in supply of “Next Generation Burners” with lower emissions and higher automation levels. Also at the time of commissioning of “Burner Systems”, flue gas composition are noted and adjusted to ensure emission levels are much lesser than compliance limits.

 

We also encourage, our customers to incorporate more advanced electronic systems where in “online/continuous analysis” of flue gases can be monitored and excess air can be trimmed to achieve much lower emission levels and savings in energy bills.

 

We are pleased to inform that, Combustion Concepts equipment are installed & commissioned in more than 20 countries, apart from India.

 

Globally, burner management system (BMS) - which deals with the protection from the boilers explosion - is gaining traction. Is BMS relevant for (or discussed in) India as well?

 

Right from inception of our company in 1988, all our industrial burners were manufactured and supplied with burner management system and continuous modulation system (CMS). However, there have been continuous developments in electronics over last decade and present day “Burner Controllers” have facilities to provide connectivity to centralised control rooms instead of local control panels.

 

What are the emerging trends in combustion equipment market?

 

Emerging trends in combustion equipment will be to reduce emission levels of harmful flue gases, improved efficiency of thermal equipments resulting in savings in energy bills, introduction of multiple fuel injections for better economic viability, higher automation in burner controllers, remote monitoring / visio control through data connectivity and may be artificial intelligence (AI). 

 

Are you looking at developing new combustion equipment? If yes, could you please elaborate? 

 

We at Combustion Concepts are continuously making our efforts to improve the existing product ranges and also to develop new products. We are at various stages of development of “High Temperature Burners”, low NoX burners & low NoX with flue gas recirculation (FGR) methods, pallets fired industrial burners, gas-air premix burners, etc. Also, we are developing higher capacity “Burner Systems” to cater to larger industrial activities.

 

What are your growth plans for Combustion Concepts?

 

Our company has been growing at a steady rate of 20% to 30% annually. We started as spare parts supplier in year 1988 for combustion equipment to industrial burner manufacturer to associated equipment manufacturer (fuel supply systems, control panels, BMS, CMS etc), to becoming ‘single source for complete package suppliers in combustion systems’. The company now has manufacturing range of combustion systems catering to 0.20 MW to 23 MW capacities. We are also executing number of special projects.

 

Our company intends to set-up state of the art large manufacturing facility in next 2 to 3 years. This facility will have number testing facilities in-line with number of international manufacturers of repute. We at Combustion Concepts would like to be known as an “institution for combustion technologies” not only in India but around the world for our contribution towards developing thermal equipments.