Capstone Awarded Patent For New Clean-Burn Fuel Injectors

Capstone Turbine Corporation has been issued U.S. Patent No. 9,366,432 for a new fuel injector apparatus. The new injector is designed to meet Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tier 4 requirements for power generation.

The injector uses preheated combustion air from the microturbine’s recuperator to vaporize liquid fuel, then the multistage design optimizes the fuel/air mixture for a cleaner burn.

The EPA has recently adopted a comprehensive program to significantly reduce emissions from off-road diesel engines used in construction, industrial and power generation applications by 90 percent.

“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 aftertreatment devices, which increase the first cost and the total system complexity and inherently lower reliability,” said 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.”

The patent is currently available for Capstone’s C65 microturbine, and Capstone is planning to extend the tech to other future products as well. With updated software, the new injectors can be retrofit on older units.