Importance

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Abstract

A process gas abatement apparatus and method are disclosed. The process gas abatement apparatus comprises: a burner comprising: a combustion chamber operable to receive an effluent gas stream from a manufacturing process tool to be treated within the combustion chamber at a sub-atmospheric pressure, the combustion chamber being further operable to receive a fuel, oxidant and diluent, the fuel, oxidant and diluent controlling combustion within the combustion chamber to treat the effluent gas stream to produce a treated exhaust stream, the diluent being condensable in the treated exhaust stream. By providing a diluent in the form of, for example, an inert condensable, the volume gain within the combustion chamber is reduced, which reduces the volume of the exhaust stream and reduces the volumetric load on the second pump. The volume gain reduces because the diluent shifts phase in the exhaust stream, thereby effectively removing the contribution of the diluent to the volume of the exhaust stream. This leads to considerable power saving since a lower volume of gas is output from the combustion chamber which would need to be brought up to the second pressure, for example atmospheric pressure, by means of the second pump.

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First Claim