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Fossil Energy Research Corporation (FERCo) was established in 1984 and is an engineering services and R&D company specializing in combustion and emissions control. The company's goal is to provide research, pilot-scale development, and full-scale evaluation to industry and government in the area of applied energy and environmental systems.

Nitrous Oxide Measurements
In 1988, FERCo discovered an artifact during the course of a combustion experiment that indicated that significant amounts of nitrous oxide (N2O) can be formed within a sample container filled with extracted flue gas containing SO2 and NO for periods as short as 2 hours. Traditionally, gas samples were extracted via a water-cooled, stainless steel probe and stored in pyrex sample flasks for subsequent analyzing for N2O by gas chromotography and electron capture detection. FERCo discovered that this sampling and storage method led to the formation of up to several hundred parts-per-million of N2O, where essentially none existed originally. At the time, the electric power community was attempting to use the measurement of N2O to determine a relationship between it and NOx to determine it's influence on stratospheric ozone depletion. FERCo's finding of the artifact led to a significant change in the sampling method for N2O species, as well as the determination that coal combustion was in fact not a significant anthropogenic source of N2O. At the same time, the University of California, Irvine was involved in a research program to develop a continuous N2O analyzer. The discovery of the sampling artifact led to an increased need for the continuous analyzer, and a prototype was developed by Horiba

EPA Method 2
In the late 1990's, many utilities began installing CEMS as required under the Acid Rain Program (40 CFR Part 75). However, the utilities found that the CEMS were consistently recording as much as a 25% higher heat input and SO2 emissions than the traditional input/output and output/loss methods. As a result, under EPRI and EPA funding, FERCo performed windtunnel experiments to assess the non-axial flow effects on pitot measurements of flowrates, which are the basis of Method 2, the EPA's standard measurement method for stack volumetric flow rate used to certify and calibrate CEMS flow monitors. The experiments concluded that the swirl effects in the stack did in fact contribute to high flow biases when uses S-type pitot tubes. These findings contributed to the EPA's revision of Reference Method 2

Products and Services
FERCo operates its own laboratory which focuses on subscale combustion and emissions control research as well as physical cold flow modeling. In 2012, FERCo added a bench and micro scale catalyst testing facility to the laboratory and listed services. In addition, FERCo has fully instrumented mobile combustion analysis laboratories for full-scale testing at natural gas and coal fired utility boilers and gas turbines. FERCo focuses on NOx control and reduction through combustion modifications and tuning, as well as post combustion control via SCR and SNCR. In addition to SCR testing and tuning, FERCo also provides analysis of initial SCR reactor design as well as catalyst forecasting and management.

Cold Flow Modeling
Cold flow modeling is a design tool for modeling of SCR and SNCR systems. Often, it is used instead of, or in conjunction with CFD modeling. Modeling can result in substantial savings by yielding improved designs and by avoiding costly post-construction field modifications. Cold Flow modeling entails construction of a scaled model of the proposed system. The models are built complete with all of the essential features of the system including all internal structural members that might affect the flow field. The model is operated in a manner so as to have the same values for the pertinent dynamic parameters as the full-scale system. Flow characterization using velocity and tracer gas measurements is used to design flow correction devices such as turning vanes, splitters, baffle plates and perforated plates to meet flow distribution criteria while minimizing pressure losses.

CatalysTraK® - Activity
The CatalysTraK® - Activity test system is an in situ catalyst activity testing device, used to test catalyst activity without having to remove the catalyst from the SCR reactor during an outage. CatalysTraK®-Activity was formerly named KnoxCheck® and was renamed in 2012. A system has been installed and successfully operating since 2005 at Alabama Power Company's Plant Gorgas Unit 10.

Hot FOIL™ LOI
FERCo also developed the HOT FOIL™ LOI Instrument, a bench-top analyzer that can be used to quickly measure Loss on ignition (LOI) data required for combustion tuning. The instrument was developed in 1987 and the first instrument was sold in September 1988. With the installation of low NOx burners there was a need for a rapid way to determine LOI in order to optimize NOx versus LOI. At that time FERCo, under EPRI funding, was developing a foil based test to characterize the coking tendency of heavy oil fuels. This resulted in the introduction of the HFCI analyzer under license to EPRI. The Hot Foil™ LOI analyzer evolved from the development of the HFCl analyzer. To date, over 100 are in use by various utilities, including Southern Company