well. He has been accepted into the PhD program at Stony Brook with a fellowship. We hope to have some continued involvement with him. DF: Do you have any plans for additional staffing at this point? TB: Not at this point. Things are going so well with the current intern program that we are inclined to keep going with that—if not with the current interns, then with the next group. We may want to eventually add a permanent staff, but we will see. DF: When did the lab open, is it fully-equipped with everything you need and what kind of equipment do you have? TB: The lab opened about a year ago (April 2016). I would say we have ramped up to the first level we wanted to get to and now we are going to be more strategic in adding new instrumentation as we feel it’s useful and necessary. In regards to the kind of equipment we have, I divide that world into two parts. One is fuel quality and composition and the other is combustion. On the combustion side, we have a first class gas analyzer, infrared for carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide analysis. It is complete with a full-up sample conditions system, which is really important—it does the pumping, filtering, drying, the metering and cal gas, we’re all set up on that. We have an outstanding data acquisition system that can measure all the parameters, temperatures and voltages, then process and display them on a screen as well as log them. It’s a highly programmable system that can not only measure everything we need to do, but also control things. For example, if we want to have a hot water load on a boiler that turns on and off according to some program schedule, we can do that with our current data acquisition system. We’ve got sensors everywhere and control valves that are computer controlled. I’m really feeling confident that we’ve got the tools we need to do a lot of great measurements. Fuel quality is increasingly important. We’ve been doing a lot of field studies. We have been sending samples out to a lab in the Midwest for analysis. However, we recognized early on that we need to build up the analytical chemistry capability within the lab and we have been doing that deliberately, thoughtfully and slowly to ensure that we are making the right investments in the right instruments. Right now,we have centrifuge so we can see what’s on the bottom of oil samples, such as water particulates. We’ve got a biodiesel content tester, a biodiesel blend acid number measurement system and we have the Rancimat tester for oxidative stability of biodiesel blends. DF: Now that you have all of this great equipment and good help, what are the projects you are currently working on? TB: Let me start with the combustion—we’re now launching into a study of CAD cell resistance with different biodiesel blends to discover if there are varying combustion characteristics of different biodiesel blends as well as CAD cell response. We are completing testing under the tankless coil project to evaluate the performance of current and future tankless coils and develop best practices in a quantitative way based on laboratory measurement on how to get the best efficiency from tankless coil systems. We are doing a lot of idle-loss and efficiency measurements for different heating systems. We are testing novel burners and systems that are being developed as part of the NORA research program; for example, the Babington burner, Novatio burners, etc. ICM March/April 2017 15
ICM March-Apri 2017
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