Enclosed is the report of fairly recent work completed for, and reported to, the USDOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory, in Morgantown, WV, on the refinement of indirect coal-to-liquid conversion technology.
Specifically, research companies in North Carolina and California collaborated, under contract to the United States Department of Energy, on the development of refining techniques for synthesis gas, derived from coal, so that liquid fuels made from such coal-derived synthesis gas would be "cleaner", and, perhaps, so that catalyst deactivation by contaminants, during the process of condensing liquid hydrocarbons from the synthesis gas, would be reduced.
Excerpts, with comment appended:
"United States Department of Energy; Office of Fossil Energy
Project ID: DE-FC26-05NT42459
Project Title: Integrated Warm Gas Multicontaminant Cleanup Technologies for Coal-Derived Syngas
Performer/Team Member: Research Triangle Institute, North Carolina; Nexant, San Francisco, CA
Fossil Energy Point of Contact: Tennant, Jenny B.; (304) 285-4830"
(We trust you will recognize the area code.)
"Project description: The objective is to develop a warm multi-contaminant syngas cleaning system for operation between 300 and 700F. This project will continue development of the RTI warm syngas cleanup technology suite. Based on the field testing results with real syngas from Eastman Chemical Company's gasifier under DOE Contract DE-AC26-99FT40675, additional technical issues need to be addressed to move the technologies used in warm syngas cleaning further towards commercial deployment especially for chemical/fuels production. These issues range from evaluation of startup and standby options for the more developed desulfurization processes to integration and actual pilot plant testing with real coal-derived syngas for the technologies that were tested at bench scale during Phase I. Development shall continue of the warm gas syngas cleaning technology platform through a combination of lab-scale R&D and larger integrated pilot plant testing with real coal-derived syngas as well as process/systems analysis and simulation for optimization of integration and intensification."
(Gosh! They used "real syngas", from coal, "from Eastman". All readers will, we trust, recall our many earlier reports on Eastman Chemical Company's Kingsport, TN, coal-to-liquid chemicals plant.)
"Project background: Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology offers a means to utilize coal-the most abundant fuel in the United States-to produce a host of products ranging from electricity to value-added chemicals, including transportation fuels and hydrogen, in an efficient and highly environmentally friendly manner. However, the fact that the overall cost (capital and operating and maintenance) of this technology is still higher than natural gas-fired power plants has impeded commercialization of IGCC technology. Although a number of factors contribute to the overall cost, the cost of cleaning the syngas to near zero contaminant levels is a major component, accounting for 7 to 15% of the overall capital cost. The keys to improving the economics of the syngas cleaning system are reducing these costs and, at the same time, increasing the thermal efficiency of conversion of coal into electricity and other products. The R&D program under this project addresses the technical challenges necessary to advance and develop warm multi-contaminant syngas cleaning systems with both reduced overall costs and increased thermal efficiency. Chemical properties of the H2 and CO present in the syngas allow its use in combustion to generate electric power or as a feedstock to produce value-added chemicals. Although there are numerous chemicals that can be produced, the three main groups are hydrogen, transportation fuels, and other value-added chemicals. A subtle twist of these applications is to use a fuel cell to efficiently extract electric power from the chemical energy in the syngas. The primary reasons for syngas cleaning are to protect downstream equipment and meet environmental regulations relating to the release of contaminant species. For electric power generation with combustion turbines, the combustion turbines do require protection from H2S, COS, and HCl, but the level of contaminant control is driven more by the regulatory need to reduce SOx and NOx emissions. However, this means that the required level of contaminant control will increase as legislation is enacted with stricter control for regulated species and the addition of control requirements for new species. Eventually, SOx and NOx emissions from IGCC-based power plants should be comparable to or lower than natural gas-fired plants for this technology to compete with natural gas. For electric power generation with a fuel cell, the required level of contaminant control is much stricter due to the necessity of protecting critical fuel cell components from corrosion or fouling. Similar high levels of contaminant control are necessary for chemical production to protect expensive catalysts used to convert H2 and CO into chemicals and control the concentration of the contaminants present in the final product (such as Hg and As). To meet these multiple application needs, treatment processes must be cost-effective at different levels of removal and allow for easy revamping to achieve additional contaminant control both for previously treated species and new species. The net result is that a syngas cleaning system with enough flexibility to exploit the range of available coals, gasification designs, and syngas applications faces a large number of technical challenges. By adding constraints for cost and thermal efficiency of the processes that use current commercial systems as a basis, emerging control technologies must overcome a variety of technical, economic, and efficiency challenges to facilitate rapid penetration of IGCC technology."
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All well and good. But, a question: If "Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology offers a means to utilize coal ... to produce ... transportation fuels ... in an efficient and highly environmentally friendly manner", why aren't we now using it in that manner, for that purpose?
Given the urgency of the need, that, thankfully, does seem to be the primary focus of this project, as in: "to move the technologies used in warm syngas cleaning further towards commercial deployment especially for chemical/fuels production".
Included in the report are many detailed results indicating that, yes, some of the most objectionable contaminants can be removed from the syngas. And, the "sorbents" used for syngas cleanup can be regenerated.
Great! This report was delivered almost five years ago, in July of 2005, to a USDOE office in the very heart of US, of WV, Coal Country.
But, why was the work done in North Carolina and California - where they mine no coal?
Why haven't we yet reduced the technology to commercial practice in US Coal Country, in the five years since the report was made?
And, why haven't any of us regular folk in US Coal Country - who paid the taxes that paid for the research - heard anything about any of it?