Catalytic burner

Abstract

The invention concerns a two-stage catalytic burner (1) with at least one feed (3) for a hydrogen or hydrocarbon-containing fuel gas and at least one feed (17) for a combustion gas such as oxygen or air, two combustion stages (15, 16), the second (16) of which is a monolithic burner through which the mixture of gases leaving the first stage (15) passes, and a heat exchanger (8) connected to the burner (1). The first combustion stage (15) is a diffusion burner in which a chamber (6) containing fuel gas is separated from the chamber (7) containing combustion gas by a catalytic layer (burner element 4) which is permeable to the fuel gas. The burner element (4) is made of highly porous catalytically active material with a porosity of >50% and pore size of 0.001 to 100 .mu.m and has a thickness of 0.05 to 10 mm. The fuel gas is fed into chamber (6) and the combustion gas into chamber (7).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.