A long time established firm (1990),SBIR involved since soon after the firm was founded and still program-active, Reaction Engineering Internation (REI) services the needs of clients in the energy and defense sectors, including state and federal government agencies, private and public utilities, major industries, manufacturers and vendors. REIs reputation for providing high quality service and solutions to tough problems has attracted significant business opportunities: an engineering consulting firm focused on solving challenging combustion and environmental problems. Many REI projects are based around Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) control with the firm advising clients on a wide variety of NOx control technologies as well as modeling tools able to predict emissions in utility industrial boilers for integrated NOx control. REI developed a NOx control technology and Rich Reagent Injection (RRI) - providing coal-fired generating units with a cost-effective means of reducing NOx formation by injecting amine-based compounds into the fuel-rich regions of furnaces. RRI development started with chemical kinetics modeling and advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling at REI, followed by extensive laboratory testing at the University of Utah and finally two full-scale demonstrations were preformed on EPRI-member utility units. The RRI process was originally developed for coal-fired cyclone boilers, and performs well in the fuel-rich lower furnace created by operating cyclone boilers with overfire air. The combined overfire air and RRI technologies have been shown to reduce levels by more than 80%. RRI is a complementary technology that can be coupled with other NOx reduction technologies such as low-NOx burners, overfire air, and Selective Non-Catalytic Reduction (SNCR). The RRI process is particularly compatible with SNCR as it uses similar chemicals and hardware, providing SNCR users a familiar operational environment and economies of scale in capital costs. For applications where ammonia slip is a concern, RRI provides a beneficial alternative since it produces no ammonia slip.
