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SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 05/06/13 -- ClearSign Combustion Corporation (NASDAQ: CLIR), an emerging leader in combustion and emissions control technology for industrial, commercial and utility markets, today announced its results for the quarter ended March 31, 2013. The Company incurred a loss of $1,357,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2013 as compared to a loss of $865,000 for the same period in 2012. Research and development costs totaled $458,000 and general and administrative costs amounted to $903,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2013 as compared to $264,000 and 600,000, respectively, for the same period in 2012. The increase in R&D expenses of $194,000 resulted primarily due to increased compensation of $143,000 related to increased personnel levels and $35,000 of increased depreciation expense. G&A expenses increased by $303,000 resulting primarily from the expense of operating as a public company, which totaled $296,000 in Q1 2013. The Company completed its IPO on April 25, 2012 at $4.00 per share raising net proceeds of $11,640,000. As a development stage company, ClearSign has recorded no revenue to date.

Working capital at March 31, 2013 totaled $6,223,000, including cash and cash equivalents of $6,655,000. Management expects these funds to be sufficient to fund activities at least through April 2014.

"The early part of 2013 has been a highly productive period for us with regard to both technology and business development," said CEO Rick Rutkowski. "During the first quarter, we reported several very important milestones on our path to commercialization.

"In early February, we announced that we had developed and demonstrated a novel power amplifier that we believe will allow us to achieve a dramatic reduction in size and cost compared to the power amplifiers that we have historically used in our development activities. The small form factor promises to enable significant design and installation flexibility while dramatically reducing cost. We believe this new approach may allow our partners to increase both market share and profitability and may open new markets for us for smaller and lower priced combustion systems including possibly even residential heating systems.

"Later in February, we achieved a major emissions control milestone and described for the first time our novel Duplex™ burner architecture. This made possible our April announcement that we had achieved ultra-low levels of NOx emissions of 8ppm while describing an aggressive goal to achieve NOx levels of 5ppm by the end of Q2. In fact, we now believe that we will report that goal ahead of schedule and can now set equally aggressive goals going forward: Based on our ongoing results, we believe it is possible, utilizing the duplex burner architecture, to design burners that will reduce NOx to levels as low as 1 or 2ppm while eliminating the need for external flue gas recirculation and maintaining oxygen or excess air at very low levels of 2.5 to 3%."

According to the Company, the Duplex architecture may enable significantly reduced flame length (by as much as 80%) while dramatically reducing NOx emissions. The Duplex architecture may be highly extensible and could have significant implications across a broad range of commercial applications that utilize a variety of burner sizes and types. Key features of the duplex architecture include:

•Ultra low NOx emissions - 8ppm demonstrated with a near term target of 5ppm.

•Short flame - allows for maximum utilization of available heater capacity enabling increased process throughput for high-value applications such as refinery heaters. Short flames are not possible with currently available technology without increasing NOx.

•No External FGR - Currently available Low- Ultra-Low NOx burners often require recirculation of up to 35-40% of flue gas. Reheating this gas is inefficient. This loss in energy efficiency is compounded by the requirement to provide power for large fans to recirculate the gas.

•Low O2 (excess air) of 2-3% - Currently available LNBs and ULNBs often require significant increases in excess air (in extreme cases up to as much as 8 to 10%). This imposes a penalty to energy efficiency as the cool inlet air continuously dilutes furnace gas.

•High turndown ratio - Unlike currently available LNBs and ULNBs, the Duplex™ burner architecture may support very high operating ranges allowing for maximum energy efficiency under variable operating conditions and requirements.