History of Steam

When Thomas Savery patented the first crude steam engine in 1679, he had no idea that that his simple mining invention and subsequent work with blacksmith Thomas Newcomen would eventually spark the Industrial Revolution. But it did.

Over the next several hundred years, the steam engine was refined with many of the most significant ideas coming from James Watt, the inventor of the modern steam engine. Even then, Watt said improved efficiency would always be vital to improving the performance of a steam engine.

While George Herman Babcock and Stephen Wilcox would later add the boiler, and Charles Parsons would patent the first steam turbine engine with an electrical generator, Watt’s ideas to improve efficiency remained mostly unchanged. Among them: reduce the dissipation of heat by the cylinder, minimize the loss of heat consequent to cooling the cylinder, and control the loss of power due to the pressure of vapor beneath the piston.

Today, by evaluating existing steam, heat, and power systems, Benz Air Engineering can make recommendations and retrofit boilers with technologies and components that were not available decades ago. The results speak for themselves. Boiler efficiency is increased by more than 95 percent, operators save millions of dollars in fuel and energy, and emissions are reduced to the lowest possible level, much lower than any existing government guidelines.