Autoflame Engineering is a global manufacturer of world-class commercial and industrial combustion control and monitoring solutions that empower customers to monitor and reduce their emissions, fuel and maintenance costs, as well as increase reliability in the boiler plant room. Report by Autoflame.
Autoflame is a trusted, familyowned, British manufacturer with a global footprint. Over the last 50 years, and as an ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 14001:2015 certified company with an £8 million turnover, it has grown into a multi-award-winning export champion. Made in Britain certified, the company manufactures 98% of its products inhouse in the HQ in Southeast London. A successful global partner network of over 100 Technology Centres installs and supports Autoflame products. Many of these partners have been working with the company for over 25 years and ensure that customers have effective local support.
Driving combustion efficiency
Autoflame was the pioneer in using microprocessors to control the combustion process. In fact, the company had a patent for 20 years, which set it apart from competitors. That innovation has continued over the last 50 years, receiving a further 37 patents for the product range to date.
“We were able to sustain such a high level of innovation by securing strong relationships across our supply chain, localising our manufacturing and testing facilities, and investing heavily in our in-house R&D,” said Steve Kemp, Sales Director of Autoflame. During the pandemic, Autoflame expanded its R&D
capability by over 50% and it has not scaled back since. This has facilitated the launch of new products, including the highly anticipated Mini Mk9.
“Many of our innovations were conceptual inspirations by my father, Brendan Kemp, inventing over 38 patented ideas,” Mr Kemp highlighted. “But we are always spending time in the field with our Technology Centres to ensure we understand first-hand, not only the product’s journey once it leaves our warehouse, but also the endless applications - from biogas to biomass”.
Autoflame is fully immersed in honing the efficiency of boilers with precise, intelligent control of everything in the combustion process from the burner to the boiler, using just one controller.
In 2022, Autoflame was awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category by the late Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for its Exhaust Gas Analyser (EGA), the Mk8 EGA EVO. The EGA monitors exhaust gas emissions to comply with environmental regulations and improve the efficiency of combustion, reducing fuel usage and harmful emissions. With a controls
and burner upgrade, customers can see typical energy savings of 10-15%.
Autoflame has a proud association with the awards. This is the fourth award that the company has won, having previously been successful in 1996, 1997 and 2007, in the Export, Environmental and Innovation categories.
Reducing emissions globally
Autoflame delivers precise and sustainable combustion processes across six continents. As the world progresses closer towards net zero, with tighter controls on carbon and NOx emissions, Autoflame adopts a collaborative approach. The company has built longstanding, trusting relationships with many of its Technology Centres, growing and reducing plant emissions across the globe together.
“The Technology Centres understand their market, plus the local economic, environmental and geopolitical situation, ” explained Mr Kemp.
Products from Autoflame are trusted to meet environmental targets across the globe. Mk8 EGA EVOs are frequently and quickly installed in the UK to ensure
government mandated MCPD compliance, or to assist companies that are driving their own change and setting their own emission reduction goals.
“These days, when people in the industry talk about carbon footprint, they tend to measure the amount of fuel used, which isn’t completely accurate,” stated Mr Kemp. “The most accurate way of taking this measurement is by measuring how well you're burning that fuel. The EGA can input a fuel meter, providing data on how much fuel is being used, and how well you’re burning it. From this, customers can precisely calculate a site’s carbon footprint.”
Autoflame has worked with companies and sites worldwide on a variety of applications and fuel types – biogas, hydrogen and other alternative fuels. For example, the air pollution control programme, Coal-To-Gas, implemented by China in 2016. A huge increase was experienced in the uptake of the Mini Mk8 burner controller and Mk8 EGA EVO.
These controllers assisted sites in switching from coal to gas, burning the gas in the smallest quantities with
the highest performance and minimal emissions. At the press of a button, up to three years’ worth of data on burner and boiler performance is accessible in multiple language options – safely, securely and consistently .
Fuel has been a big concern for industry since 2022. With prices rising, companies are more aware of their fuel use. Many customers require fuel flexibility, which is a unique feature of the Mk8 MM. The controller enables a rapid changeover from one fuel to another, all whilst the burner is firing.
If fuel prices suddenly increase, sites can switch for a short period to an alternative fuel. This feature is utilised by one customer firing biogas at a wastewater treatment facility. When the supply of
biogas is down, the site quickly switches to gas – preventing unnecessary downtime and keeping the plant’s process in continuous operation. Precise, intelligent control Safety, accessibility and precision are paramount to Autoflame. Its products carry worldwide approvals in every country across the world and are tested and approved by the local safety body. These include UL, CE, AGA and ATEX.
These approvals, such as ATEX explosion proof, mean that Autoflame products can be securely used in hospital boiler rooms to petrochemical plants. Working closely with suppliers and their manufacturing teams, these products meet and exceed every safety
approval in the world at no additional cost to the customer.
Autoflame has recently launched the Mini Mk9, the latest generation of its pioneering burner controller. One of the main reasons for releasing the Mini Mk9, was the redundancy of many of the components which Autoflame currently uses in the Mini Mk8. Working with suppliers –many of whom Autoflame has worked with for decades – the company has almost halved the production time and ensured availability of components needed to manufacture the Mini Mk9. This increased the overall efficiency of the controller.
One of the most unique features of the Mini Mk9 is the ability to trim the combustion process by monitoring
the UV spectrum, making instantaneous changes to combustion to increase efficiency and overall safety of the plant.
“The pre-existing process had an inherent time lag,” said Mr Kemp. “With the new UV Flame Trim, a patented feature exclusive to Autoflame, combustion is trimmed within a second of it taking place, this means there is no time lag in feeding back data and correcting the combustion process, delivering safety, efficiency, performance with very little additional cost.”
There might not be an answer as to how to get to net zero tomorrow, but Autoflame provides a solution right now that delivers energy, emissions and cost savings, along with compliance and increased safety in modern boiler plant rooms. n
