[1] In experiments with industrial gasoline engines conducted in April 1990, Joachim Alfred Wünning found that when combustion occurred at a temperature greater than 850 °C, the flames were blown away.
The advantages of this technology attracted funding for a project at Stuttgart University called FloxCoal, a programme aiming to engineer a flameless atomizing coal burner.
[2] The reduced pollutant emission in FLOX combustion has been considered a promising candidate for use in coal pollution mitigation and the higher efficiency combustion in FLOX received increased interest as a result of the 1990 oil price shock.
[3] FLOX requires the air and fuel components to be mixed in an environment in which exhaust gases are recirculated back into the combustion chamber.
Reduction of the combustion temperature in gasoline engines, by reducing the compression ratio, was among the first steps taken to comply with the U.S. clean air act in the 1970s.