In a recent article appearing in a one-time Coal Country newspaper, which has since seemed to have packed up its bags, or at least it's heart, and moved to Gasland,
(See: Gasland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "Gasland is a 2010 American documentary film written and directed by Josh Fox. The film focuses on communities in the United States impacted by natural gas drilling and, specifically, a stimulation method known as hydraulic fracturing.)
and, which article is accessible via:
we learn that one Mr. "Paul Forward", who is identified to be "a chartered financial analyst" believes that, even with the competitive business threat of natural gas, there are "opportunities" for Coal and for the Coal industry.
He seems to claim that there is "reason for optimism about the future of coal" because "EPA regulations that call for an increase in scrubber installations" will enable "companies ... to use high-sulfur coal".
Actually, we see some contradiction in the sentiment seemingly expressed. The EPA is saying, actually, that, because of their own regulations, if we want to go on using Coal, then we will, because of those regulations, have to install desulfurization scrubbers, and, again, that's a good thing because of their regulations.
We should, thus, be encouraged that we might, at least, if we spend even more money, be able to stay in business - if we don't, in fact, in the process, price ourselves right out of the business we're in.
We hope and trust that everyone in US Coal Country will then enjoy and prosper from their new careers selling pencils out of tin cups down on the corner of Market and 14th Streets.
Given our personal disabilities and insufficiencies, we're not able to explain that very well; but, it seems to us like a circular reasoning kind of thing. And, it calls to mind one those old folk art novelties you could, back in the Dark Ages, buy in the one or two gift shops that adorned the West Virginia Turnpike.
They were called, with modest impoliteness, "BS Grinders", and consisted of two little blocks of wood, which, connected to and actuated by a little wooden crank handle, would slide back and forth past each other in two crossing channels carved in another, larger block of wood.
A good bit of motion resulted, an amount of "work" was expended, in addition to the money spent on the impulse-purchase toy itself, but nothing of real substance or value got accomplished.
Maybe we can offer some alternative scenarios that, even given the imperious BS Grinders handed to us by the EPA, might allow us to, in fact, actually achieve something worthwhile.
We've noted in multiple submissions, such as:
Iowa Mines Metals from Coal Ash for the USDOE | Research & Development; which centered on two technologies embodied in "United States Patent 4,386,057 - Recovery of Iron Oxide from Coal Fly Ash" and "United States Patent 4,397,822 - Process for the Recovery of Alumina from Fly Ash";
that at least two commercially-valuable metals exist in Coal ash in sufficient quantities to make extracting them for commercial use a practical proposition worth considering.
And, our good old United States Department of Energy just might have developed for us a tool that would enable us to use the desulfurization "Grinders", forced upon us by the EPA, to do something besides endlessly, and unproductively, process their BS.
We can use the otherwise waste "sludge" generated by Coal-fired power plant exhaust gas Sulfur scrubbers, which, we would surmise, the EPA would further classify as hazardous solid waste that demands large additional expense, in addition to the scrubbers themselves, to somehow dispose of, to, on a practical basis, extract the Aluminum, and some of the other metals present in significant quantities, from Coal ash.
The United States Patent that is the core of our report herein seems based on research performed by our United States Department of Energy at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, about which we earlier reported, in:
USDOE Says Coal Ash Could End Aluminum Ore Imports | Research & Development; concerning, in part:
"Economic Metal Recovery from Fly Ash; Symposium on Resource Recovery and Environmental Issues of Industrial Solid Wastes; 1981;Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USDOE; TN; Abstract: Although most coal combustion ash produced in the United States is discarded as a waste, results are presented to show that fly ash can be an economical source of Al2O3, Fe2/O3, and possibly several other metals, many of which are presently being imported."
And, much of that research was finally condensed and formalized by the USDOE, with what should be seen as a potentially very rewarding twist, as seen, with comment inserted and appended, in our excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 4,252,777 - Recovery of Aluminum and Other Metal Values from Fly Ash
Date: February, 1981
Inventor: William McDowell and Forest Seeley, Oak Ridge, TN
Assignee: The United States of America
This invention was made in the course of, or under, a contract with the United States Department of Energy. It relates to a method for recovering aluminum and other metal values from fly ash.
References: "Coal Research Bureau, Report No. 130," West Va. Univ., Morgantown, W. Va., Jul. 1976.
Abstract: The invention described herein relates to a method for improving the acid leachability of aluminum and other metal values found in fly ash which comprises sintering the fly ash, prior to acid leaching, with a calcium sulfate-containing composition at a temperature at which the calcium sulfate is retained in said composition during sintering and for a time sufficient to quantitatively convert the aluminum in said fly ash into an acid-leachable form.
Claims: A method for improving the acid leachability of aluminum and other metal values found in fly ash which comprises sintering the fly ash, prior to acid leaching, with a calcium sulfate-containing composition at a temperature at which the calcium sulfate is retained in said composition during sintering and for a time sufficient to quantitatively convert the aluminum in said fly ash into an acid-leachable form.
(Folks, pay attention to, and don't miss the import of, the following claim.)
The method ... in which the calcium sulfate-containing composition is selected from the group consisting of calcium sulfate, mixtures of calcium sulfate with magnesium sulfate or calcium carbonate or the sludge resulting from treating SO2 -containing effluents with lime or limestone.
The method ... in which the acid leachant is sulfuric acid (or) nitric acid (or) hydrochloric acid or aqueous mixtures thereof.
(And, note, with apologies for what will be a lengthy interruption, that, not only do we get a useable "calcium sulfate" sludge from Flue Gas Desulfurization Scrubbers, we also get, since the scrubbing reaction, to be effective, has to be accomplished in the presence of Water, a solution of Sulfur Dioxide, SO2, in Water; and, as seen in:
USDOE Makes Hydrogen by Using Sulfur Dioxide | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,244,794 - Hydrogen Production by the Decomposition of Water; 1981; Assignee: The United States of America; This invention relates generally to the production of hydrogen gas from water and in particular relates to a sulfuric acid process for producing hydrogen. It is a result of a contract with the Department of Energy. Claims: A process for producing hydrogen comprising: passing an electric current from a cathode to an anode through water containing sulfur dioxide so as to produce hydrogen gas at the cathode and so as to oxidize the sulfur dioxide to form sulfuric acid at the anode, thus producing an aqueous solution of sulfuric acid; (and)separating said hydrogen gas from said aqueous solution of sulfuric acid";
we can then efficiently process that Flue Gas Scrubber aqueous effluent, containing dissolved SO2, to make both Hydrogen, which can be used in processes such as those described in:
US Navy Awarded September, 2011, CO2 Recycling Patent | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 8,017,658 - Synthesis of Hydrocarbons via Catalytic Reduction of CO2; 2011; Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Navy; Abstract: A method of: introducing hydrogen and a feed gas containing ... carbon dioxide into a reactor containing a Fischer-Tropsch catalyst; and heating the hydrogen and carbon dioxide to ... produce hydrocarbons"; and:
US Navy 2008 CO2 to Synfuel | Research & Development; concerning the broadly similar and related: "United States Patent 7,420,004 - Producing Synthetic Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels; 2008; Assignee: The USA, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy; Abstract: A process for producing synthetic hydrocarbons that reacts carbon dioxide, obtained from seawater or air, and hydrogen obtained from water";
to convert any Carbon Dioxide we might want to scrape together into liquid hydrocarbon fuels;
and, the Sulfuric Acid, which is required by the process of our subject herein, "United States Patent 4,252,777" to help effect the "Recovery of Aluminum and Other Metal Values from Fly Ash".)
Description: As used herein, the term "fly ash" is used to refer to the ash produced by and from the combustion of powdered or other particulate forms of coal in power station boilers or entrained ash carried over from a gasifier as typically recovered from flue gases or stacks, such as by electrostatic precipitation.
Structurally, the fly ash to be treated for metal value recovery in accordance with this invention comprises a mass of refractory glassy, non-crystalline micron-size spheroidal particles derived from coal.
Summary: According to the present invention quantitative recovery of aluminum from fly ash is achieved by heating mixtures of fly ash and calcium sulfate or mixtures of fly ash with calcium sulfate and at least one material selected from the group consisting of calcium carbonate, magnesium sulfate, or magnesium carbonate; or a sludge comprising a mixture of calcium sulfate, calcium sulfite and calcium carbonate (resulting from treating the stack gas of a coal-burning power plant with a limestone slurry to remove sulfur dioxide therefrom) at a temperature and for a time sufficient to convert the glassy spheroidal particles of fly ash into a crystalline structure from which the aluminum is readily and quantitatively dissolved into aqueous inorganic acid leachants, such as sulfuric, nitric, or hydrochloric acid, or aqueous solutions thereof.
The discovery that sintered mixtures of fly ash and calcium sulfate-containing compositions will render the resultant sintered material available for quantitative leaching of aluminum permits the process of the present invention to be carried out by using waste products resulting from coal combustion. For example, the removal of sulfur dioxide from the waste gases resulting from the combustion of coal is being increasingly accomplished by passing the sulfur dioxide containing effluent gases through a slurry of lime (CaO) or limestone (CaCO3). These materials react with sulfur dioxide to produce a sludge containing varying amounts of calcium sulfate, calcium sulfite, and unreacted lime or limestone which, we have found, after dewatering, serve as useful materials in combination with the fly ash to produce an acid leachable aluminum after exposure to a suitable sintering operation. Calcium sulfite will be readily converted to calcium sulfate during sintering of the fly ash dewatered sludge mixture. Furthermore, when sulfuric acid is used as the leachant, a considerable amount of the acid needed to serve as aluminum dissolution medium will be generated during the production of the finally desired product, alumina."
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And, there you have the essence of the thing:
According to our own United States Government's experts in the United States Department of Energy, we can, through a combination of processes developed and owned by the United States Government, use a Coal combustion gaseous byproduct, Sulfur Dioxide, by transforming it into Sulfuric Acid, to extract, on a practical and potentially-commercial basis, Aluminum, "and other metal values", from a Coal combustion solid byproduct, Fly Ash.
We've addressed what some of those "other metal values" are in earlier reports, as, for one instance, in:
Coal Ash a Superior Source of High-Tech Metal | Research & Development; concerning, in part: "United States Patent 4,643,110 - The Recovery of Gallium and Germanium from Coal Fly Ash; 1987".
And, we will address more of those metals in reports to follow.
Moreover, we assert, as we have documented, and as will further document, as, for one instance in the report whose title alone should be explanation enough:
US EPA Headquarters Housed in Coal Ash | Research & Development;
that, even after most of the commercially-valuable metals have been extracted from our Coal ash, the residual minerals could still have value, both as a raw material for the manufacture of Portland-type cement, and, then, as an aggregate filler in that cement, to make structural concrete.
There are other implications and uses for the mineral products that would result from an acid leaching, as described by our subject, "United States Patent 4,252,777", to recover valuable metals, as well; and we will document some more of those in future reports.
However, in sum, suffice it to say, that, as confirmed herein by both our United States Department of Energy and our United States Patent and Trademark Office, we can utilize what might otherwise be seen and treated as an exhaust gas pollutant arising from our productive uses of Coal to recover, on a practical basis, a metal of nearly-vast utility, Aluminum, all raw ore of which we now must import, from what might otherwise be seen and treated as a solid pollutant arising from our productive uses of Coal.