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Coolbrook Successfully Heats Natural Gas to 1000°C at Brightlands Pilot Plant – A Major Step Towards a Clean New Industrial Era

For further information, please contact:

Coolbrook Sales
Lauri Peltola
Chief Commercial Officer
lauri.peltola@coolbrook.com
tel. +358 50 361 4612

Coolbrook has reached another significant milestone in industrial electrification. At our Brightlands pilot plant, we have successfully heated natural gas to 1,000°C using our RotoDynamic Heater™ (RDH™) technology—a breakthrough in high-temperature process heating powered entirely by renewable electricity.

This achievement confirms RDH™ technology’s efficiency and safety in heating natural gas and explosive hydrocarbons, while also offering valuable insights into hydrocarbon behavior at extreme temperatures for process optimization.

Natural gas (and methane) heating is a critical step in several applications, including:

  • Fuel Preheat – Enhancing combustion efficiency in industrial furnaces and other high-temperature heating applications.
  • Reactor Feed Preheat (e.g., steam-methane reforming, dry reforming and methane pyrolysis) – Enabling low-emission pathways to convert methane into syngas, hydrogen, or solid carbon without CO₂ emissions.
  • Reduction gas pre-heating (e.g., DRI process in steel) – Reducing the need of fossil-based fuels as heat input

In addition, limited natural gas decomposition was observed during the process, thanks to the extremely short residence time in the RDH™, preventing unwanted byproducts and demonstrating the efficiency of our technology.

The successful heating of natural gas to 1,000°C is a crucial milestone on our way to even higher temperatures, as there are no technical constraints for our technology to heat natural gas / methane to temperatures beyond 1,000°C.

By proving we can precisely and efficiently heat natural gas without decomposition, Coolbrook advances its mission to decarbonize high-temperature industries, replacing fossil-fuel combustion with electrification and paving the way for the clean new industrial era.

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