The new Eurofuel interview series introduces different companies and organisations dealing with greenhouse gas-reduced liquid fuels. Some of them do research in that field, others produce the fuels or products designed to work with them. One such company is SUNTEC from France, which has been testing its products with a range of future fuels since the beginning of the 90s.
The new Eurofuel interview series introduces different companies and organisations dealing with greenhouse gas-reduced liquid fuels. Some of them do research in that field, others produce the fuels or products designed to work with them. One such company is SUNTEC from France, which has been testing its products with a range of future fuels since the beginning of the 90s.
SUNTEC was originally established in 1984 as a subsidiary of a large American group. With two production sites, one in the USA and one in Europe (near Dijon, France), SUNTEC designs, manufactures and markets an unparalleled range of pumps and accessories for domestic and industrial burners and boilers.
Eurofuel asked Jérôme Lamey, Sales and Marketing Director Suntec Group, five questions.
Suntec develops and manufactures pumps for use in heating oil burners. What is the particular challenge of these pumps?
Jérôme Lamey: Pumps are a key component in a heating system. In addition to putting the oil under pressure to allow a good combustion, their first job is to suck the oil from the tank which can sometimes be far from the boiler. Pumps must be to very reliable and need to be compatible with different kind of oils in a range of environments.
In order to reduce climate-related emissions, bio and synthetic fuel oil mixtures are already being produced. Do fuel oil pumps have to be adapted to these new fuels?
Jérôme Lamey: Suntec has launched its first B10 compatible pump and retrofit kits in 1995.
Since then, we have continued to develop and improve our compatibility with new bio and synthetic oils. We’ve worked a lot on seals, gaskets materials as well as on yellow metals to adapt our products to those bio and synthetic fuels.
Pumps are examined on the trial, which renewable liquid fuels are used here?
Jérôme Lamey: For many years Suntec has undertaken lab tests of different FAME mixtures which can go up to B100. Those trials have been complemented by field tests to make sure that the complete system can run without any trouble. More recently we started to test in-house, and in collaboration with some burners and boilers manufacturers, HVO which is a 3rd generation renewable liquid fuel.
Are there already initial results and to what extent have the pumps been adapted to the new fuels?
Jérôme Lamey: Yes, thanks to our experience and appropriate materials and compounds like FKM seals, our tests went well with different percentages of biodiesel (FAME). We are also very enthusiastic with the first results with HVO. This liquid fuel is very stable and offers a very good combustion efficiency to the boiler.
What does SUNTEC think about the future of liquid fuels?
Jérôme Lamey: We are aware of the climate change and the need to react quickly to drop drastically our GHG emissions. Today, Biodiesel (FAME) and HVO allow you to make your existing boiler cleaner without significant investment costs for the end user. Tomorrow, PtL fuels will permit us to store electricity and continue to heat us up. Liquid fuels are definitely part of the solution to struggle against climate change.
