2022 R&D 100 Award for Ultraclean Condensing Gas Furnace

Commercial and residential condensing natural gas furnaces contribute to climate change by releasing acidic water and harmful gas emissions, all capable of causing long-term harm to soil, water and air.

To mitigate damage from these pollutants, ORNL researchers developed the Ultraclean Condensing Gas Furnace, which utilizes monolithic acidic gas reduction, or AGR, as the catalyst to remove more than 99.9% of acidic gases and other emissions, such as carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and methane, from furnaces.

This leads to not only neutral condensate that is highly environmentally friendly, but also ultraclean flue gas that meets future emissions regulations. Neutral condensate enables a simpler and less expensive furnace design, which yields a higher efficiency ultrahigh furnace and a reduction in installation costs.

AGR functions like a catalytic converter in a car, passing the exhaust over metals to reduce acidic gases and pollutant emissions that contribute to global climate change.

Ultraclean can be integrated into current furnace designs without altering manufacturing processes and applied to other gas-driven devices like gas boilers, commercial natural gas equipment, industrial furnaces and natural gas water heaters.

Funding for this project was provided by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Building Technologies Office.

ORNL’s Zhiming Gao led the development. Research contributors included ORNL’s Kyle Gluesenkamp, Kashif Nawaz, Anthony Gehl, Josh Pihl, Dino Sulejmanovic, Tim LaClair, Mingkan Zhang, Lingshi Wang, Van Baxter, Bo Shen, Xiaobing Liu, Jeff Munk and Jim Parks.