A modified furnace, which burns diesel oil is adopted to study the combustion characteristics and the pollution of the exhausting products under certain designing and operating conditions. The different equivalence ratios and swirl numbers can be obtained by adjusting the flow rate of both axial air and tangential air. The controlling ranges of the various experimental parameters include the equivalence ratios from 0.8 to 1.1, the jet oil pressures from 7 kg/cm² to 9 kg/cm², the open angles of the plate 0¢X and 45¢X, the swirl numbers from 0 to 1.0, the flow rates of the recirculated flue gas from 0% to 12%. The effects of the controlling variables on the combustion characteristics and the formations of pollutants within combustion chamber are studied in this reseach. A photographic technology is used to study the flame structures for helping us to understand the behaviors of the flame under various operating conditions. Under the equivalence ratios from 0.8 to1.1, the concentrations of the average NO and CO decrease, at the lower equivalence ratio. However, the concentrations of the average NO and temperature increases monotonously when jet oil pressure increases. The plate open angle 45¢X is useful for the mixing of both fuel and air, so that the open angle of the plate have important effects on both the temperature of combusion gas and the formation of pollutant NO. When the plate open angle 45¢X and the swirl number is 0.6, the flow rate of NO in the exhaust duct is the lowest. At equivalence ratio 0.8, the average NO concentration in exhaust duct decrease, when the flow rate of the recirculated flue gas increase. Our experiments display that the optimized operating condition is at the plate open angle 45¢X, the swirl number 1.0 and the recirculation rate of the flue gas 12%. NO can be reduced to 32% in this condition, and heat efficiency is reduced only about 3.7%, so we can achieve the request of reducing efficiency to much, the formation of pollutant without influencing the combustion. Under the condition of swirl number 0 and the open angle of the plate at 0¢X and 45¢X the color of the flame in the primary combustion region are white-yellow. In the other hand, at the swirl number 1.0, the color of the flame out of the primary combustion region at the swirl number 1.0 exhibits the red color due to the formation of CO2 and water vapor. The red color region at the swirl number 1.0 is much larger than that at the swirl number 0.