Reducing natural gas needs and carbon emissions in industrial usage and transforming industry towards hydrogen with HERC, a novel plasma-assisted combustion (PAC) technology

Project Information

herc accelerating industrial co2 neutrality

Grant agreement ID: 190188980

DOI

10.3030/190188980

Project closed

EC signature date 5 April 2023

Start date 1 February 2023

End date 31 July 2025

Funded under

• The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Total cost

€ 3 566 560,00

EU contribution

€ 2 496 592,00

Coordinated by

EFENCO OU
Estonia

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - herc accelerating industrial co2 neutrality (Reducing natural gas needs and carbon emissions in industrial usage and transforming industry towards hydrogen with HERC, a novel plasma-assisted combustion (PAC) technology)

Reporting period: 2024-02-01 to 2025-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

High-temperature process heat (HTPH) industries, which are energy-intensive, consume 20% of all fuels and contribute 24% to global GHG emissions. A significant 80% of these industries lack viable alternatives for transitioning towards CO2 neutrality. While renewable energy options exist, they come with challenges. For instance, renewable solutions often need high operating costs, uncertain lifespans, and incompatibility issues, such as using electricity in the iron and steel sector. Hydrogen cost ranges between 1.5 to 5 times that of natural gas for the same energy amount. In a steam system operating at full capacity, fuel expenses dominate, making up 96% of life-cycle costs, while capital and operational expenses contribute just 3% and 1%, respectively. This underscores the central role of energy efficiency in cost considerations.

However, striving for optimal combustion efficiency presents its own set of hurdles. Thermochemical constraints cap efficiencies at 98.5%, and pushing these limits might inadvertently increase emissions. Currently, there's a lack of effective solutions to address this dilemma. Since CO2 emissions are a direct outcome of a chemical process, significant reductions can't be achieved without pioneering new technologies.

High Energy Ray Ceramic (HERC) technology is a patented novel method that uses self-powered vacuum nanoelectronic chips to generate low-temperature plasma from waste heat from chemical reactions and other heat sources.

HERC chips are embedded in the high-temperature combustion chamber, interacting with the flame to release the power of plasma-assisted combustion. This ground-breaking method efficiently turns waste heat into usable energy. In 2022, the HERC prototype achieved an 18% increase in combustion efficiency during industrial validation, possibly revolutionizing the whole combustion sector. Increasing fuel combustion efficiency reduces greenhouse gas emissions and aids in the decarbonization of hard-to-abate sectors. The overall objective of the project is to reach the first industrial installation of HERC chips.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the project, Efenco developed and experimentally validated a novel class of heat-powered photon generators based on pyroelectric emission in vacuum-sealed ceramic devices. The primary technical objective was to achieve stable soft X-ray emission under cyclic thermal excitation and to understand the dynamic behavior of pyroelectric crystals in high-temperature, low-pressure environments relevant to industrial applications.

Using our custom-built test rig (“Fire Cube”), we conducted systematic laboratory experiments combining calorimetric, spectrometric, and combustion-coupled measurements. These trials revealed a clear and repeatable influence of soft X-ray flux on flame behavior—measurable through shifts in oscillation patterns, flame stability, and thermal output. To our knowledge, this constitutes the first experimentally validated instance of high-energy photons (1–50 keV range) generated via purely thermal means affecting combustion dynamics.

A major milestone was the achievement of stable photon fluence rates of ~1.8 × 10⁶ photons/cm²·s, with peak rates up to 2.7 × 10⁷ photons/cm²·s in a 14-chip configuration. These values approach those of low- to mid-power commercial soft X-ray tubes, but were achieved without external high-voltage sources or active cooling, solely through controlled thermal gradients across pyroelectric LiTaO₃ crystals. This confirms the feasibility of a compact, passive, and energy-autonomous emission system.

These scientific breakthroughs contribute novel data to the emerging field of thermally driven photon emission and lay a robust foundation for industrial pilot deployments post-project. They also open new application pathways in: Combustion enhancement; Advanced surface processing , In-situ sensing in harsh conditions .

Together, these achievements establish Efenco’s HERC technology as a new class of emission platform, bridging pyroelectric materials, combustion science, and applied energy engineering.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The Efenco project has advanced a novel photon-based enhancement mechanism for combustion processes using pyroelectric soft X-ray generators. To our knowledge, this is the first time such a method has been repeatedly demonstrated with measurable thermodynamic effects. Calorimetric tests indicated up to 5–10% shifts in energy distribution profiles during combustion. These results emerged from hundreds of hours of controlled testing in the custom-built “Fire Cube” setup, which enabled precise monitoring of crystal behavior, emission patterns, and thermal cycling dynamics.
However, the project also revealed significant complexity in reliably scaling the effect. One key challenge is the multi-body electrostatic and electromagnetic interference between chips in shared enclosures, which can lead to non-linear performance behavior. These interactions sit at the intersection of multiple scientific and engineering domains—vacuum nanoelectronics, thermodynamics, plasma physics, material science, and combustion engineering—making this a deeply interdisciplinary problem space.
As such, further uptake will require continued R&D support beyond the project’s scope. Addressing these challenges demands targeted efforts in modeling, simulation, and endurance testing, along with broader collaboration between academic and industrial partners. In addition, support for international IPR, certification pathways, and access to demonstration funding and market validation environments will be critical to transition this deep-tech innovation into robust, scalable products.