The Lille meeting re-launched a tradition of the British and French Flame Committees holding joint technical meetings – Flame Days.  The main purpose of these events is for our respective members to meet and hear about each other’s work.  From these points of view the meeting was very successful.  It attracted 68 delegates, including invited speakers and post-graduate students from UK and French Universities coming together hear 17 oral presentations and view 14 posters.  Delegates also included participants from Belgium, Holland, Germany and Italy as well as French and British Flame members and several non-members.

The programme covered a wide range of technical and environmental issues and it was interesting to see similarities and differences between the issues, solutions and barriers faced by UK and French industrial energy users and providers, as well as equipment manufacturers.  Also, there were several presentations from UK and French universities covering their current research projects aimed at addressing problems associated with meeting future energy needs.  The invited lectures came from the EU on an improved policy on industrial emissions; from the European CSS Demonstration Programme (ZEP Grouping) and from the IFRF on its future activities.

Overall the meeting covered 6 main themes:

• climate change challenges including CCS
• oxy-fuel combustion systems
• developments in low-NOx burner technology
• modelling heat transfer and NOx in industrial furnaces and utility boilers
• technologies for the combustion of biofuels and
• the impact of fuel composition on operating plant performance

The interest in the topics covered was certainly reflected in the many questions to the authors, including the poster presenters, and the one-to-one discussions during the breaks.

As well as the formal sessions there were plenty of opportunities for networking including the Conference dinner at the rather splendid and very unusual L’ Hermitage Gantois.

Although this was a joint meeting, much of the work needed to make it a success fell upon the French Committee, especially Willi Nastoll, who received support from the two local universities – Lille and Ecole des Mines de Douai.  Both Committees would like to acknowledge the sponsorship received from Région Nord-Pas de Calais and IFP, France.

We look forward to holding a similar event in the UK quite soon!!!

Copies of the papers from the meeting and abstracts for both these and the posters will be published on the British Flame website, www.britishflame.org.uk.  These should be available to download by the end of March.