Brian has thirty years of experience in combustion-related problems, including work with the Universities of Melbourne and Queensland, and the Queensland electricity industry. His activities have included investigations into the combustion of Victorian brown coal, Queensland black coal, bagasse, medical waste and other biomass. Part of this work was the examination of new firing systems. With a colleague he developed a reliable predictor for the formation of NOx in coal-fired boilers. Work on alternative energy from waste included a study of the pyrolysis/combustion of used tyres and participation in a study funded by the Queensland government on the gasification of bagasse to produce a biogas suitable for combustion in gas turbines.
His most recent concern has been the incineration of MSW during a 2½ year appointment to l’Ecole des Mines d’Albi-Carmaux in France. This led to a method to predict the formation of dioxins in combustion systems, which has attained international prominence. He was subsequently commissioned by EPA Australia to peer review the report on dioxin formation in bushfires.
Current and recent consulting activities involve the fate of heavy metals and the formation of dioxins during the combustion of wood waste. Other tasks include the analysis of particulate emission profiles from power station boilers and a technical and economic evaluation of a pyrolysis process for generating electrical power from MSW.