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Portugal Converts Coal with Ethanol


There are a couple of points to be taken from this report of research, conducted in Portugal, on the use of biologically-produced, carbon-reycling ethanol to, as we have documented to be feasible and practical, enhance and improve the process of liquefying coal.
 
First, the excerpt:
 
"Effect of coal pre-treatment with swelling solvents on coal liquefaction 

F. Pinto, I. Gulyurtlu, L. S. Lobo and I. Cabrita

INETI, Azinhaga Lameiros, Estrada Paço do Lumiar, 1699 Lisboa Codex, Portugal

Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Quinta da Torre, 2825 Monte da Caparica, Portugal


November 1998

Abstract

Pre-treatment of coal with swelling solvents may enhance coal porosity and thus facilitate catalyst action. The yields of products obtained by coal liquefaction were very much dependent on the type of swelling solvent used. Those studied included ethanol, tetrahydrofurane (THF) and tetrabutylammonium hydroxide (TBAH). After this treatment coal was liquefied using ZnCl2 as catalyst, both alone and mixed with Fe2O3 or ICI 41-6 (Co–Mo). When ethanol was used, the highest coal conversion was obtained, although this solvent had the lowest swelling ratio, probably because a better catalyst impregnation was achieved. On the other hand, although the swelling ratio of TBAH was the greatest, lower overall coal conversions and higher oils yields were observed. In an attempt to interpret these results, coal structure before and after swelling pre-treatment was also studied using SEM."

So, during processes to convert coal into liquids suitable for refining into fuels, when renewable, and carbon-recycling, ethanol was used, "the highest coal conversion was obtained".

Note, too, mention of ICI's Cobalt-Molybdenum catalyst, and it's effectiveness in coal conversion processes. We have previously documented ICI's research into the use of coal as a source of raw materials for plastics manufacturing; and, the use of cobalt and molybdenum as two, among, it seems, many, catalysts that can effect the, apparently, well-known conversion of coal into valuable hydrocarbon liquids has also been very well established. 

What makes this Portuguese research remarkable is the fact that it istwo years before the report of this coal-to-liquid research. Portuguese. Never a significant producer of coal to begin with, Portugal, according to web-based sources, ceased all coal mining activity in 1996,

Still, they seem to believe that the potential benefits of converting even imported coal into needed liquid fuels was rewarding enough to pursue research and development.

Why don't we seem to exhibit much of the same sort of healthy self-interest in the heart of US Coal Country?

Japan Improves CoalTL with Coal Oils


As we have previously documented, and will attempt to substantiate further, the class of products traditionally known as "coal oils", which have been extracted from coal through variations of well-known coking processes long used in the steel-making industry, can serve to enhance and improve some processes of coal liquefaction. The synergistic effect of utilizing coal oil, combined with another hydrogen donor solvent, to liquefy coal is confirmed herein by recent research from Japan, who liquefied coal for their military in WWII, as has been thoroughly documented, and where they are now preparing the "NEDOL" process of coal liquefaction for commercial deployment. 
 
The excerpt:
 
"Extraction of Low Rank Coals by Coal Derived Oils at 350°C for Producing Clean Fuels
 
Kouichi Miura, Kazuhiro Mae, et. al.
 
Department of Chemical Engineering, Kyoto University; December, 2002
 
Abstract:
 
We have recently presented a new coal solvent extraction method that enhances the extraction yield dramatically. The method extracts coal using a flowing stream of either tetralin or 1-methylnaphthalene under 10 MPa at 200 to 400°C. The extract yield reached 65 to 80% for bituminous coals at 350°C, and the extract was almost free from mineral matters. Thus, this method was found to be effective to recover clean fuels from bituminous coals under rather mild conditions. To extend the extraction method to low rank coals and to make the method practically applicable, coal derived oils, carbol oil and creosote oil, were used in addition to tetralin in this study. Twenty kinds of coals were subjected to the extraction by tetralin and the coal derived oils at 350°C. Almost all sub-bituminous coals and brown coals examined were surprisingly extracted by 80% in the carbol oil at 350°C. It was also found that the extract was almost free from mineral matters and that most of sulfur was retained in the coal through the extraction by tetralin, whereas most of sulfur including pyritic sulfur was transferred into the soluble fraction through the extraction by the carbol oil. Thus, it was clarified that the proposed method was effective to produce a large amount of clean fuels from low rank coals under rather mild conditions."
 
First, these Japanese researchers affirm the effectiveness, and cleanliness, of the hydrogen donor solvent, tetralin, as specified by WVU in their "West Virginia Process" of direct coal liquefaction.
 
But, they have determined that by using coal derived oil, alone or in combination with tetralin, they were able to "extract", or liquefy, "surprisingly", 80 percent of brown, sub-bituminous coal, i.e., lignite, and almost 80 percent of bituminous coal.
 
Moreover, the coal-derived liquid was very clean, "almost free from mineral matters", and the "method was found to be effective to recover clean fuels from bituminous coals under rather mild conditions".
 
By "mild", a commonly-used descriptor of coal conversion technology in international reports, we take them to mean lower temperature and pressure, i.e., lower energy and, thus, lower cost.
 
The lowering of cost for coal liquefaction seems to have been one focus of this work, as well as developing a system that is "effective to produce a large amount of clean fuels from low rank coals".
 
Again, we remind you of proposals in Pennsylvania to harvest and liquefy coal mine wastes, and of the documented, potentially recoverable, carbon content of some older mine waste accumulations in West Virginia.
 
In any case, Japan, as herein, has developed technology that "enhances the extraction yield (of liquids from coal) dramatically"; and, that technology is "effective to recover clean fuels from bituminous coals".
 
Why aren't we using that technology, right now, to "recover clean fuels" from our abundant West Virginia "bituminous coals"?
 
Don't we need those fuels? Don't we have a lot of coal?

Bio Improves CoalTL Efficiency

 

Like much about the very real, and practical, technologies that exist for converting our abundant coal into the liquid fuels we need, the language of this entry on the subject of coal-to-liquid conversion is so obscure, one might be forced to conclude deliberately so, that the true message is difficult to ascertain.
 
Explanation follows the excerpt: 
 
"A New Low-Temperature Synthesis Route of Methanol: Catalytic Effect of the Alcoholic Solvent
 
Jianqing Zeng, Kaoru Fujimoto, and Noritatsu Tsubaki
[Unable to display image]Guangzhou Institute of Chemistry, CAS, Guangzhou, 510650, P.R. China
School of Engineering, The University of Kitakyushu, Wakamatsu, Kitakyushu, 808-0813, Japan
Department of Material System and Life Science, School of Engineering, Toyama University,  Japan
December 4, 2001; Copyright © 2002 American Chemical Society 
 
The effects of different alcohols as reaction solvent on the synthesis of methanol from CO/CO2/H2 on solid Cu/ZnO catalyst were investigated. In the presence of some alcohol, especially 2-alcohol, as reaction medium, the reaction of methanol synthesis proceeded with high activity at temperatures as low as 423−443 K, much lower than the temperature in the present industrial methanol production process. This method is very promising to become a new technology for low-temperature synthesis of methanol where complete purification of syngas is not necessary."
 
First, "CO/CO2/H2", is, simply, syngas, as we can, through well-known and well-established processes, obtain from coal.
 
Then, note: "methanol synthesis proceeded ... at temperatures ... much lower than the temperature in the present industrial methanol production process" in "the presence of ... 2-alcohol".
 
Your "2-alcohol", we submit, is your basic corn squeezins - i.e., ethanol, aka C2H5OH.
 
In other words, and as we have earlier documented from other sources, renewable and carbon-recycling bio ethanol enhances, improves and facilitates the conversion of coal into the liquid fuel, and plastics manufacturing raw material, methanol; which can itself be further converted, as we have thoroughly documented, into gasoline.
 
An argument against converting coal into liquid fuels has been that it takes more energy to effect the conversion than is obtained when the liquid fuel is combusted for useful energy.
 
Well, duh. There are inefficiencies and costs involved in any energy conversion. Has anyone calculated, for instance, the true costs, the losses, incurred by utilizing battery-powered electric vehicles?
 
The energy losses there include, first, the rather significant costs of making the batteries. But, almost always left unmentioned, undisclosed, is the loss of energy caused by transmission of electricity through power lines (it takes a lot of "pressure", known as voltage, to squeeze the juice through the lines, and that is all "lost" energy) in addition to all of the costs involved in constructing a generating source, and the huge inefficiencies involved in converting, very crudely, one form of energy - wind, nuclear, hydro, whatever - into another, i.e., electricity.
 
Whenever we convert one form of energy into another, there will be costs, losses, of energy involved. Simple physics.
 
However, in this submission, from both China and Japan, we have documentation that a technology exists to lower the energy costs of converting coal into liquid fuels; and, that cost "lowering" comes via a renewable resource that helps both to recycle carbon and to establish some basis of sustainability.
 

Germany Converts CoalTL Residue with US Tech

 
As we have earlier documented, the residues of some coal liquefaction processes retain a significant carbon content. And, again as previously documented, the remaining carbon can be recovered from those residues for further processing into additional liquid hydrocarbons.
 
What we find most interesting about the enclosed document attesting to those facts is that the work was performed by Germany - who, from  their extensive WWII synthetic fuel experience, should know a few things about liquefying coal - in two existing coal conversion facilities which. like the operational CTL facility in Kingsport, Tennessee, no one, at least no one willing to do something with the information, seems to have heard anything about, have been liquefying coal for more than two decades.   
 
But, Germany, in these experiments, used a United States technology developed by Texaco, about which we've reported, to extract hydrocarbon values from already-processed coal liquefaction residues.
 
The excerpt:
 
"Title: Gasification of hydrogenation residues using the Texaco coal gasification process.  
 
Author: Cornils, B.: Hibble, J.; Ruprecht, P.; Langhoff, J.: Duerrfeld, R.
 
Journal: Fuel Process Technology (Netherlands) Journal Volume 9:3. December, 1984
 
Abstract:
 
Since early 1978 the two West German companies Ruhrchemie AG and Ruhrkohle AG have been operating a Texaco coal gasifier on the premises of Ruhrchemie at Oberhausen, West Germany. The gasifier is a pressurised entrained slagging gasifier working at a pressure of 40 bar and at temperatures between 1200 and 1600 C. The aim of a second experimental program is to adapt the existing coal gasification facility to the conversion of liquefaction residues and to demonstrate the generation of syngas from liquefaction bottoms on a semi-commercial scale. This feedstock is a high-melting material which can be fed to the gasifier either as a solid or in a molten form. The application of solid feedstock resembles that of coal and requires the equipment necessary to prepare an aqueous suspension, the characteristic feed material for a Texaco gasifier. It has already been tested extensively using the residues from two different coal hydrogenation processes. The feeding of molten residue requires a special feed system which in principle resembles that of a heavy residual oil gasifier adapted to the higher melting temperatures of the feedstock and the handling of high amounts of ash. The system is operating in close cooperation with Ruhrkohle/VEBA's coal-oil plant at Bottrop, West Germany, near Oberhausen. It consists of road transportation of the molten residue from Bottrop to Oberhausen, storage and feeding to the gasifier. The equipment necessary was built and commissioned in December 1983. In an initial three weeks uninterrupted test run it operated in a decidedly steady manner with a high degree of reliability and without any trouble of note. Due to the high reactivity of the feedstock and the low temperature at which the gasifier operated, excellent performance data have been recorded. 9 references."
 
Even though this was published in the Netherlands, we won't speculate on what connections there might have been between this research and semi-Dutch South Africa's coal liquefying giant, Sasol.
 
But, as we've pointed out in other of our reports, note the "coal-to-liquid as a matter of known fact" tone of the statement: "the characteristic feed material for a Texaco gasifier".
 
Did, or does, anyone in US Coal Country know there was such a thing as a "Texaco gasifier" which can use a "characteristic feed", i.e., COAL, "with a high degree of reliability and without any trouble of note" to produce liquid fuel raw materials?

USDOE & Texaco Coal Conversion

We some time ago documented Texaco's interest in coal-to-liquid conversion technologies, and submit the enclosed links and excerpts as further evidence of the CoalTL accomplishments they, and others, made.
 
However, a fate befell Texaco very similar to the one met by Gulf Oil, subsequent to Gulf's documented research and development of coal-to-liquid conversion technologies in the 1970's and 1980's.
 
Explanation follows the links and excerpts:
 
 
"Title: Coal-to-methanol: an engineering evaluation of Texaco gasification and ICI methanol-synthesis route. Final report
 
Authors: Buckingham, P.A.; Cobb, D.D.' Leavitt, A.A.; Snyder, W.G.
 
Publication Date: August, 1981
 
Report Number: EPRI-AP-1962; OSTI ID: 6108583; ON: DE81904235; Technical Report
 
Research Organization: Fluor Engineers and Constructors, Inc., Irvine, CA
 
Abstract:
 
This report presents the results of a technical and economic evaluation of producing methanol from bituminous coal using Texaco coal gasification and ICI methanol synthesis. The scope of work included the development of an overall configuration for a large plant comprising coal preparation, air separation, coal gasification, shift conversion, COS hydrolysis, acid gas removal, methanol synthesis, methanol refining, and all required utility systems and off-site facilities. Design data were received from both Texaco and ICI while a design and cost estimate were received from Lotepro covering the Rectisol acid gas removal unit. The plant processes 14,448 tons per day (dry basis) of Illinois No. 6 bituminous coal and produces 10,927 tons per day of fuel-grade methanol. An overall thermal efficiency of 57.86 percent was calculated on an HHV basis and 52.64 percent based on LHV. Total plant investment at an Illinois plant site was estimated to be $1159 million dollars in terms of 1979 investment. Using EPRI's economic premises, the first-year product costs were calculated to $4.74 per million Btu (HHV) which is equivalent to $30.3 cents per gallon and $5.37 per million Btu (LHV). 126 Pages."
 
We've previously documented that coal-to-liquid conversion performed "indirectly", through coal gasification and subsequent condensation, over one of a number of appropriate and effective catalysts, into liquid hydrocarbons, does leave behind a carbonaceous residuum that can itself be further processed to extract even more liquid hydrocarbons.
 
Texaco was assigned to examine those possibilities, as well; and, one year after the foregoing coal gasification/methanol synthesis report just cited, published the following:
 
 
Title: Gasification of residual materials from coal liquefaction: Type-III extended pilot-plant evaluation of a molten Exxon donor solvent (EDS) liquefaction process residue from Illinois No. 6 coal
 
Author: Robin, A.M.; Yang, H.L.
 
Publication Date: August, 1982 
 
Report Number: DOE/ET?10137-T4: FE-2247-30; OSTI ID: 5074428; DE82019929; DOE Contract Number: AC01-76ET10137
 
Research Organization: Texaco, Inc., Montebello, CA
 
Abstract:
 
A Type III Extended Pilot Plant Evaluation of Exxon EDS Vacuum Residue, which was obtained from the liquefaction of Illinois No. 6 coal at the Exxon Baytown Texas coal liquefaction pilot plant, was successfully completed at Texaco's Montebello Research Laboratory. A total of forty-four tons of EDS residue was gasified during five runs which were carried out at 1200 psig in the Texaco pilot plant residue gasifier. The solvent dilution levels, the steam-to-residue ratio and the oxygen-to-residue ratio were varied to determine optimum operating conditions. A total of 97 hours of on-stream time was accumulated. The longest continuous run was 28 hours. This work was authorized by DOE Delivery Order Number 6 under DOE contract DEAC01-76ET10137. It is part of a continuing project to evaluate residual materials from various DOE sponsored coal liquefaction projects to determine their suitability for conversion to hydrogen in one of the Texaco gasification processes."
 
Now, a number of points bear emphasis:
 
First, Texaco, as happened with Gulf Oil after their documented coal liquefaction developments, was, in 2001, also acquired by Chevron, whose subsequent coal conversion research, and CTL research partnership with Penn State University, we have documented for you.
 
And, the work reported herein was performed on residue "obtained from the liquefaction of Illinois No. 6 coal at the Exxon Baytown Texas coal liquefaction pilot plant". We have earlier documented the existence of that facility, run, ominously and predictably, by yet another Big Oil stalwart, Exxon. Where are the reports on it's operations and results?
 
Further, the enclosed reports concerned work that was supposed to be "part of a continuing project to evaluate residual materials from various DOE sponsored coal liquefaction projects".
 
What are the results of the entire "continuing project"; and, what, and where, are the results from all the other "various DOE sponsored coal liquefaction projects"?
 
Finally, since two oil industry pioneers in coal liquefaction technology, Texaco and Gulf, have been acquired by Chevron, and Chevron, as we've elsewhere documented, is now in a "coal conversion partnership" with Penn State University, what are Chevron's plans and current operations relative to coal-to-liquid conversion?
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