Air Products, Lehigh Valley, Pa., licensed its Large Scale Vortex (LSV) burner technology to John Zink for applications such as retrofitting existing hydrogen and syngas plants, and new and retrofitted methanol and ammonia plants. Air Products retains the exclusive rights to use LSV burners in new hydrogen and syngas production installations.

“We wanted to work with someone very prominent in the combustion industry,” said Bob Davis, director of technology commercialization, energy and process industries at Air Products. “We've got a great technology with environmental and operational benefits, but are not in the burner business. By licensing to John Zink, we can fully leverage the advantages of this technology.”

The LSV allows users to meet low NOX emission requirements in regulated regions and makes the added capital investment expense of a selective catalytic reduction unit for these combustion applications unnecessary. It uses a proprietary fluidic flame stabilizer and mixing nozzles that enable the primary flame to operate at ultra-lean conditions. The flame-stabilizing method requires very little fuel in the primary flame, which keeps temperatures low and reduces NOX.

Under the license agreement, Air Products will perform the process and detail design of the LSV burner for its selected applications. John Zink will handle marketing, detailed mechanical design and manufacturing, and will interface directly with customers purchasing the Air Products technology.