Capstone Turbine Corporation has issued a US patent for a new cleaner fuel injector apparatus.
When used with liquid fuel, Capstone’s multi-staged lean pre-vaporizing, pre-mixing fuel injector will provide an ultra-low emissions that meet United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tier 4 requirements for power generation, the company said in a statement.
Preheated combustion air from the microturbine’s recuperator is utilised by the fuel injector to finely vaporise liquid fuel, and the multistage design optimises the fuel/air mixture for a cleaner burn, it explained.
EPA has recently adopted a comprehensive national program to significantly reduce emissions from off-road diesel engines used in construction, industrial and power generation applications. Under this new program, exhaust emissions from these engines will be required to decrease by more than 90%, the company said.
“Capstone’s product development group is doing an excellent job moving the technology forward in meeting continuously lower global emissions standards without the crutch of using emissions after-treatment devices, which increase the first cost and the total system complexity and inherently lower reliability,” commented Darren Jamison, Capstone's president and chief executive officer. “Interest in liquid fuel versions of our product are increasing as more remote applications and markets that do not have the benefit of low-cost natural gas are looking to become more environmentally conscious without sacrificing reliability,” he added.
The patent is currently available for Capstone’s C65 microturbine product but will soon be extended to other products in the company’s line, the company reported.
Furthermore, the fuel injector system is reverse compatible with older units and can be easily integrated in the field with the addition of new updated software.
“This additional achievement of our combustion and fuel development team is broadening the worldwide application of our product” said Tony Lorentz, director of product development at Capstone, adding that “the team’s focus is now on the application of butane, ethane, syngas and high H2S fuels.”