The license agreement applies to retrofitting of existing hydrogen and syngas plants, and new and retrofitted methanol and ammonia plants. Air Products still reserves all rights to use LSV burners exclusively 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 commercialisation, 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's competitive advantage is its ability to meet low NOx emission requirements in regulated regions. This makes the added capital investment expense of a selective catalytic reduction unit for these combustion applications unnecessary.

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

At the heart of this new technology are a proprietary fluidic flame stabiliser and novel mixing nozzles, which enable the primary flame to operate at ultra-lean conditions. This new flame stabilising method requires very little fuel in the primary flame, which keeps temperatures low, thereby greatly reducing NOx emissions.