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Fuel Flexible Low Emissions Burner for Waste-to-Energy Systems

Award Information
Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Branch: N/A
Contract: EP-D-13-031
Agency Tracking Number: EP-D-13-031
Amount: $79,894.00
Phase: Phase I
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: F
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2013
Award Year: 2013
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2013-05-15
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2013-11-13
Small Business Information
410 Sackett Point Rd.
North Haven, CT 06473-
United States
DUNS: 178154456
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Sandeep Alavandi
 (203) 287-3700
 salavandi@precision-combustion.com
Business Contact
 John Scanlon
Phone: (203) 287-3700
Email: jscanlon@presision-combustion.com
Research Institution
 Stub
Abstract

Waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies are being developed that combine waste management and energy generation. Theses wastes include a wide range of bio-based fuel stocks (biomass from wood and/or grasslands) or organic waste streams (manure and farm waste, municipal solid waste (MSW), sawdust). Much ingenuity is being directed to producing liquid fuels or useful solids such as char from biomass, but the net value-added of these processes is held back by the substantial portion of the biomass fuel content that ends up as byproduct biogas, producer gas or wood gas having variable moisture content, energy density, and potential contaminants. Converting such biogas to energy for processing heating or for a boiler or an engine would substantially aid the economics of biomass conversion processes. However, many such gases have too low Btu content for stable combustion, requiring either substantial drying of sweeting with natural gas. Even for gases that have sufficient Btu content for stable combustion, it is challenging for burners to achieve low emissions especially in the presence of fluctuating Btu contents. It would be very helpful to biomass-to-energy process economics to be able to have a burner that could readily burn a wide range of byproduct gases, with Btu ranging form ultra-low to high, and that could handle high water content.§The Phase I effort will demonstrate the capabilities and benefits of the catalytic burner technology for biomass applications. The low emission, low pressure drop design will help improve the plant efficiency, reduce GHG, and provide process heat of power. The Phase I work will also produce technical data supporting the economics of implementing the burner for biomass plants. Upon successful completion of the Phase I, the Phase II program will focus on integrating the burner to a biomass plant. This will demonstrate the applicability of the full scale burner for performance, stability and durability and address field issues, and will provide a catalytic burner that can be commercialized for multiple biomass plants. §Potential application is for most biomass-to-energy processes, all of which deal with the challenge of varying Btu byproduct gas. In improving the economics of such processes, our innovation will support overall biomass-to-energy process economics and adoption. Biomass-to-energy processes help overall air quality by displacing fossil fuel energy sources with renewable ones.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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