Superior Boiler has been awarded patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for two game-changing products created for advanced hot water heating in the company's watertube boilers.

The company's high-temperature fluid generator, protected by U.S Patent number 11,047,596, provides greater flexibility on the temperature differential of heating, enabling a swing of 160 degrees to 450 degrees. Because of its ability to scale, the fluid generator is designed for industrial applications with large heating loads. Invented by Sundeep Bodapati, Superior's vice president of engineering, watertube division, the generator's membrane-style construction uses a simplified design that makes it easier and less expensive to fabricate. Its components can be built separately and assembled quickly and, because they are more accessible from the outside than comparative units are, the generator is less costly to use and friendlier from an inspection and maintenance standpoint.

The second patent, number 11,060,717, protects Superior's multiple pass flexible water tube boiler and its method of use. Invented by Bodapati and retired former employee John R. English, it allows a 75-degree heating differential and uses a tangent tube construction for low-load, smaller building applications. Its unique design, using a reduced number of tubes and bends, decreases its cost and time to build. Placement of the product's headers all on one side eases access to the unit.

"Creation of the high-temperature fluid generator and multiple pass flexible water tube boiler represent Superior's commitment to innovative customer solutions," said Superior's CEO, Doug Wright. "If Superior is unable to satisfy a customer request with existing products, we invest in research and development to customize or create products that efficiently and cost-effectively meet the need. As the new patents demonstrate, we do not just take the conventional road, but learn from and improve upon conventions."

"Superior focuses on meeting the needs of the application with optimized production and operating costs that are appealing to the customer," Bodapati said. "In the case of the high-temperature fluid generator, for example, we were asked to meet a customer's need for a large-load capacity. The most commonly used competing product is complicated to build and comes in multiple pieces, increasing installation costs. Superior's boiler is easy to build, easy to maintain and installs as a single component."

Superior also holds a steam application patent for its watertube boilers, issued in July 2020.