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Nalco Mobotec Technology Receives R&D 100 Award

(Walnut Creek, CA) Nalco Mobotec Inc., a global leader in combustion optimization and air improvement technologies, announced today that its Thief™ carbon process was named one of the top 100 innovations of 2009 by R&D magazine.

The Thief process was developed by researchers at the Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and exclusively licensed to Nalco Mobotec. The process extracts partially burned coal from a pulverized coal-fired combustor using a suction pipe, or "thief process." The carbon is then re-injected back into the flue gas stream to capture mercury produced in the combustion process.

“Testing of the Thief process has been productive, showing reductions competitive with powdered activated carbon,” said Eric Fischer, President of Nalco Mobotec. “When combined with our MerControl® technology for mercury capture, the process can remove up to 90 percent of the mercury emissions. We have a mobile Thief system probe that can be used at client sites to determine if the technology is feasible for their system. As government regulations of mercury tighten, we expect greater market demand for this technology and are actively seeking partners to continue its development.”

The editors of R&D magazine and a panel of experts evaluated entries in 18 categories to select what they judged to be the 100 most innovative new technologies of the year as award winners. Click here to view the story on the R&D Magazine website.