BETE nozzles are used for quenching in commercial and industrial applications around the world. In many processes a gas is raised to temperatures that could easily damage downstream equipment. This can either be by direct combustion, as in the case of flue gas, or by secondary heating. The quickest and most effective way to cool a hot gas is through the evaporation of an injected liquid. Changing the phase of the injected liquid to gas consumes enormous amounts of energy compared to sensible/direct contact cooling. As an example, heating water from 0 °C to 100 °C requires about 418 kJ/kg. Converting that same water from liquid at 100 °C to steam at 100 °C requires about 2320 kJ/kg, or more than 5 times the energy. The energy used to vaporize the gas is taken from the hot gas, thus lowering its temperature.

In evaporative gas cooling, a mist of water is sprayed into the hot gas. In many cases this is flue gas from a combustion process. The water then evaporates, cooling the system rapidly as the energy is used to change the water from liquid to gas. When a volume of water is atomized into smaller droplets, more surface area is exposed, allowing the evaporation rate to increase. The rate of evaporation is often critical as the gas must reach its final temperature before a fixed point downstream. The evaporation rate is dependent on the droplet size, temperature differential, and partial pressure among other variables.