An U.S company called ClearSign Combustion has developed a technology to eliminate key pollutants from power plants and refineries, and make them much more efficient. The technique involves electric fields to control the combustion of fuel by manipulating the shape and brightness of flames.
This technology could offer a cheaper way to reduce pollution in poor countries. And ClearSign’s approach to reducing pollution also reduces the amount of fuel a power plant consumes.
ClearSign claims that its technology could reduce fuel consumption by as much as 30 percent. But external experts thinks that it may not give that much reduction in practical. Anyway, any small amount of fuel consumption reduction can save lot of Money.
ClearSign uses high-voltage electric fields to manipulate the electrically charged molecules in a combustion flame. This can improve the way air and fuel mix together, and can spread out a flame to prevent hot spots that cause pollution.
The idea of using electricity to shape flames is NOT new. But, previous approaches typically involve plasma, and the plasma needs large amounts of energy. ClearSign says its technology only uses one-tenth of 1 percent of the energy in the fuel that a power plant consumes. It works using electrodes within the flame. The electrode produces high voltages that influence the movement of ions; by varying the voltage, it’s possible to control the way the flame forms. The technology is particularly effective at reducing smog-forming NOx emissions, carbon monoxide, and soot.
ClearSign says,
Our Electrodynamic Combustion Control technology introduces a computer-controlled electric field into the combustion zone to improve control of flame shape and heat transfer. This same technique can also be used to optimize the complex chemical reactions that occur during combustion in order to minimize harmful emissions while maximizing system efficiency.
In addition to reducing pollution, the technology can improve the efficiency of a power plant or a refinery in several ways. Improved mixing of fuel and air means less fuel is wasted by incomplete combustion; the technology can also improve heat transfer from the flame to the water in a boiler, so less fuel is needed to make steam.
