Automatically regulated combustion process

摘要

In a combustion process a fuel is mixed with an oxygen-containing gas in an adjustable ratio. This fuel-gas-mixture is burned and thereby an exhaust gas is produced. At least a part of the exhaust gas is collected and exposed to an ultra violet radiation source, thereby generating positive and negative charge carriers in the exhaust gas by means of a photoelectric charge separation process. The kind or amount of the positive and/or negative charge carriers is detected to produce a measurement value which reflects the amount and/or the charge of the carriers. Therefrom a control signal is derived and the mixture-ratio of the oxygen-containing gas and the fuel, the so-called lambda -factor, is adjusted in response to said control signal in order to improve the efficiency of the combustion and to reduce the emission of toxic substances.