Swiss-roll Flare Gas Incinerator

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Program:
REMEDY
Award:
$3,300,000
Location:
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Status:
ACTIVE
Project Term:
03/28/2022 - 03/27/2025
Website:

Technology Description:

Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) proposes an innovative Swiss-roll incinerator that effectively recuperates the heat from combustion products to fully combust the flare gas over a wide range of flow rates and concentrations. ACT's design comprises a spiral heat exchanger surrounding the incinerator, which effectively minimizes the heat losses from flue gas, incinerator wall convection, and radiation. The excess enthalpy in the reactants significantly extends the range of flammable mixtures to provide a complete methane combustion. The heat recirculating Swiss-roll incinerator also provides low heating value waste gases or volatile organic compounds destruction of industrial flares with extremely low carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides emissions. The ACT team will use a novel 3D printing method to produce a large-scale ceramic-metal composite that withstands temperatures over 2500ºF. The team will also investigate material improvements that can potentially expand thermal capabilities. The full-scale system will be field tested under actual conditions.

Potential Impact:

REMEDY addresses methane emissions from domestic oil, gas, and coal value chains, accounting for 78% of U.S. primary energy.

Security:

REMEDY systems will reduce the environmental footprint from the production and use of domestic resources.

Environment:

A key REMEDY process performance metric is to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions > 87% on a life cycle basis. This metric ensures proposed solutions provide a holistic environmental benefit. If successful, REMEDY processes have the potential to reduce U.S. methane emissions by at least 60 million tons of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalents) per year.

Economy:

REMEDY goals call for 99.5% methane reduction while meeting a levelized cost less than $40/ton of CO2e.

Contact

ARPA-E Program Director:
Dr. Jack Lewnard
Project Contact:
Dr. Chien-Hua Chen
Press and General Inquiries Email:
ARPA-E-Comms@hq.doe.gov
Project Contact Email:
chien-hua.chen@1-act.com

Related Projects

• Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT) - Swiss-roll Flare Gas Incinerator
• Cimarron Energy - Flare and Control for Ultra High Destruction and Removal Efficiency
• Colorado State University (CSU) - Lean-burn Natural Gas Engine System to Achieve Near-zero Crankcase Methane Emissions from Existing and Future Engine Fleet
• INNIO Waukesha Gas Engines - Ultra Low Methane Slip Reciprocating Engine
• Johnson Matthey - Catalytic Oxidation of Ventilation Air Methane
• MAHLE Powertrain - Methane Oxidation Catalysts for Lean-burn Natural Gas Engines
• Marquette University - Prechamber Enabled Mixing Controlled Combustion of Natural Gas for Ultra-Low Methane Emissions from Lean-Burn Engines
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Ventilation Air Methane Abatement via Catalytic Oxidation (VAMCO) with Machine-Learning Enhanced Sensing and Feedback Controls
• Precision Combustion (PCI) - Destruction of VAM Using a Modular Catalytic Element System
• Texas A&M University - Reducing Emission of Methane through Advanced Radical Kinetics and Adaptive Burning in Large Engines (REMARKABLE)
• University of Michigan - REMEDY using SABRE (Reducing Emissions of Methane Every Day of the Year using Systems of Advanced Burners for Reduction of Emissions)
• University of Minnesota (UMN) - Plasma-assisted In-situ Reforming of Flare Gases to Achieve Near-Zero Methane Emissions

Release Date:
04/08/2021