LaserSpectra: zero-emission fuel enabler for the green energy transition

The climate and sustainability opportunity

Slight incremental gains in fossil fuel efficiency are a drop in the ocean compared to the severity of the climate crisis. True climate change mitigation requires solutions that minimise harm, actively protect natural systems, and accelerate the structural transformation away from fossil fuels.

The primary barrier to adopting zero-emission fuels like hydrogen is their volatile, unpredictable, and highly transient combustion behaviour. Legacy point-sampling tools are too slow and blind to spatial dynamics, introducing safety risks that stall the green transition. Industry requires an ultra-high-speed, non-intrusive diagnostic tool to visualise and stabilise zero-carbon thermal reactions in real time, actively enabling the total decommissioning of legacy fossil-fuel systems.

Technology overview

LaserSpectra serves as a foundational Zero-Emission Fuel Enabler. The system integrates advanced laser absorption tomography (LAT) with a proprietary, scalable multi-channel data acquisition (DAQ) framework and real-time spectroscopic signal processing.

By utilising a patent-pending, dynamically reconfigurable DAQ architecture, LaserSpectra achieves ultra-high-speed, synchronised data capture across multiple optical channels. This allows operators to instantly map complex, turbulent, and fast-burning alternative fuel reactions without disrupting fluid dynamics or gas flow. It provides the essential, high-fidelity empirical data needed to safely control hydrogen combustion, eliminate unexpected flashbacks, and suppress secondary emissions.

Applications and validation

LaserSpectra is validated at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6, with industrial validation complete and field-proven performance on commercial gas-turbine engines and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) test cells. Current and potential applications include:

• Hydrogen and green fuel transition: unlocking safe, stable combustion parameters for volatile zero-carbon energy sources.

• Fossil infrastructure phase-out: de-risking the engineering shift from hydrocarbon systems to fully sustainable industrial platforms.

• Atmospheric and natural system protection: real-world roadside emission diagnostics in Low Emission Zones to prevent particulate deposition in surrounding ecosystems.

• De-risking next-generation industrial equipment: continuous structural and chemical health monitoring of clean energy generators.

IP and licensing status

Edinburgh Innovations is offering LaserSpectra for licensing, with three further routes to partnership: industrial pilot projects, joint development partnerships, and venture investment or spin-out participation.

Benefits

Unlocking the green energy transition

• Safe hydrogen deployment minimises the volatility risks of zero-emission fuels by providing instant structural mappings of thermal reactions.

• Fossil fuel obsolescence delivers the precise monitoring framework required to completely replace fossil-fuel infrastructure with clean alternatives.

• Ecosystem harm prevention drastically reduces total greenhouse gas and localised pollutant potential by stabilising clean combustion before atmospheric release.

• High-fidelity validation provides high-resolution spatial mapping to validate and refine 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models for pioneering green technologies.

• Predictive maintenance for clean tech identifies localised thermal hotspots early, protecting expensive renewable power assets from premature structural wear.

• Dynamic catalyst optimisation monitors after-treatment performance dynamically to ensure zero-emission systems function at peak environmental compliance.

Publications

Liu, C. et al, A Modularized Chemical Species Tomography Sensor for Dynamic Imaging of Gas-Turbine Exhaust, Sensor. Actuator. B-Chem. 444, 138459 (2025).

Quote : TEC1104748