Sawdust (and Coal) to Liquid Fuel

 
 
We're intent on establishing and confirming that some botanical products, those high in cellulose, can be liquefied with coal to provide us with our needed liquid transportation fuels. Such co-liquefaction provides carbon dioxide offsets and helps to establish sustainability - until we refine and commercialize the techniques for direct capture and conversion into liquid fuels of Carbon Dioxide itself, which is also a demonstrated, though still emerging, technology. Our coal resources would be thus conserved to better serve us in their current roles, and in an evolving one as a source of raw materials for our plastics and chemicals manufacturing industries.
 
The excerpt:
 
"Liquefaction of sawdust for liquid fuel 

Yongjie Yan, Jie Xu, Tingchen Li and Zhengwei Ren

Energy Resource Chemical Engineering Department, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Mei Long Road, Shanghai, 200237 China 

Abstract

Pressurized liquefaction of sawdust was carried out in an autoclave in the presence of solvent under cold hydrogen pressure ranging from 2.0 to 5.5 MPa at the temperature range of 150C–450°C. The reaction time varied from 5 to 30 min. Investigations were made on the effects of temperature, reaction time, cold hydrogen pressure and solvent on the liquefaction process. Results indicate that liquefaction of sawdust can start at a temperature of 200°C, much lower than that for coal in a hydrogen-donor solvent, e.g., tetralin which was used in this run of experiment. Oil yield increase with the rise either in temperature and in cold hydrogen pressure or with the longer reaction time."

Please note the use of "tetralin" as a "hydrogen donor" solvent in this report. Tetralin appears as the primary hydrogen donor solvent we've documented to be employed by West Virginia University in their development of direct coal liquefaction technology. 

And, don't be misdirected in your thoughts concerning the use of "sawdust", which in itself might seem a very finite resource of limited production and availability. Think instead of it as, simply, cellulose: an abundant, renewable resource available from numerous botanical sources that can be purpose-grown, and grown with nourishment and stimulation directly supplied by the co-products of coal combustion and coal conversion, especially Carbon Dioxide. Cellulose-to-liquid and Coal-to-liquid are similar, complementary and synergistic, quite real, technologies.

Coal as Basis for Renewable Energy

 

It's a given that our use of coal - whether we burn it for power generation or to smelt metals, or transmute it into highly-desired chemical feed stocks and desperately-needed liquid fuels - will generate carbon dioxide.  
 
We have been explaining that carbon dioxide should not be seen as an environmental "poison", but as a raw material, a valuable by-product of our coal use, which can, through a variety of technologies, be transmuted into very useful products, including more liquid fuel. We have provided substantial documentation attesting to the truth of that assertion.
 
Herein, from Northwestern University in Illinois, is yet more evidence of that truth.
 
The excerpt:
 
"Syngas Production By Coelectrolysis of CO2/H2O: The Basis for a Renewable Energy Cycle
 
Zhongliang Zhan, Worawarit Kobsiripha, James R. Wilson, Manoj Pillai, Ilwon Kim and Scott A. Barnett
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, 2220 Campus Drive, Evanston, Illinois 60208 and Functional Coating Technology LLC, 1801 Maple Ave., Evanston, Illinois 60201 

Abstract

Electrolysis was carried out at 700−800 °C using solid oxide electrochemical cells with H2O−CO2−H2 mixtures at the Ni-YSZ cathode and air at the LSCF-GDC anode. (YSZ = 8 mol %, Y2O3-stabilized ZrO2, GDC = Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.95, and LSCF = La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3). The cell electrolysis performance decreased only slightly for H2O−CO2 mixtures compared to H2O electrolysis and was much better than for pure CO22O and CO2 and production of H2 and CO with increasing electrolysis current density. Electrolyzers operated on 25% H2, 25% CO2, and 50% H2O at 800 °C and 1.3 V yielded a syngas production rate of 7 sccm/cm2. The use of electrolytically produced syngas for producing renewable liquid fuels is discussed; an energy-storage cycle based on such liquid fuels is CO2-neutral, similar to hydrogen, and has the potential to be more efficient and easier to implement." electrolysis. Mass spectrometer measurements showed increasing consumption of H

In sum, as we have several times explained: Carbon Dioxide and Water can be electrolyzed to produce Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen. Those two components, mixed together, comprise "syngas" - the chemical combination which, we have extensively documented, can be readily generated from coal; and, once thus obtained, can be easily catalyzed to produce liquid hydrocarbons, up to, and including, gasoline.

And, it seems important to repeat a passage from the excerpt: "The use of electrolytically produced syngas for producing renewable liquid fuels is discussed; an energy-storage cycle based on such liquid fuels is CO2-neutral, similar to hydrogen, and has the potential to be more efficient ".

An energy cycle based on coal-use byproducts is "renewable", "CO2-neutral" and is likely to be "more efficient".

It seems clear, and, not just demonstrated but proven far beyond question, that coal can be converted into methanol, and into diesel and gasoline-equivalent fuels to supply our nearer-term liquid fuel needs. At the same time, the technology to employ the Carbon Dioxide by-product of our coal use, through sustainable biological and direct chemical means, toward that same end can be developed and deployed. Our coal could thus be conserved to then supply us, through it's established conversion technologies, as we have documented to be possible, feasible, practical and profitable, with the plastics and chemicals manufacturing raw materials that all of us, and all of our children, will want and need in the centuries to come.

Coal can do all of that.

Israel, Coal Flue Gas & Aquaculture

 

As we've suggested to be possible and feasible, flue gasses can be harnessed to help cultivate aquatic crops; in this case, seaweed.

It's not exactly algae for additional liquid fuel production, as we've documented to be feasible and practical, but the principle's the same, and various seaweeds do have various uses where they're available, including as a beneficial livestock feed component, if nothing else. "Red Seaweed" presumably has some value above and beyond the one that interests us most in this Israeli demonstration, i.e., the source-point fixation of Carbon Dioxide from a coal-powered utility.

Comment follows the excerpt:

"Utilization of flue gas from a power plant for tank cultivation of the red seaweed  

Alvaro Israel, Jonah Gavrieli, Anat Glazer and Michael Friedlander


Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, Ltd., The National Institute of Oceanography, Tel Shikmona, P.O. Box 8030, Haifa 31080, Israel

IMI (TAMI), Institute for Research and Development, Ltd., P.O. Box 10140, Haifa Bay 26111, Israel

Israel Electric Company, Ltd., Haifa, Israel

Abstract

Flue gases containing 12–15% CO2, mixed with warm seawater disposed by a power plant, were used to cultivate Gracilaria cornea (Rhodophyta) in 1000 L or 40 L tanks at pH 8.0. During the 13-month study, growth rates were similar to those where commercial CO2 was used (94.1% vs. 91.3% biomass increments per week), with additions of NH4 and PO4 having significant enhancing effects on algal growth. Concentrations of chemical components, including heavy metals, measured in the seawater medium were within the range of those found in the tissue and agar of G. cornea, meeting international standards for marine pollutants. In average, the agar content and agar strength were similar for the different treatments, as were the levels of carbohydrates and total soluble proteins. These results show that flue gas and warm seawater can be used for intensive long-term seaweed tank cultivation presumably at reduced production costs as compared with commercial CO2."

We find the concluding sentence, especially, to be intriguing. The overall implication of this is, apparently, that in seaweed farms not intimately connected to a coal-utilization plant, they actually buy Carbon Dioxide, at some expense, and truck or pipe it in to nourish the crop. And, the coal-plant flue gas works, it seems, even a little better than commercial CO2.

One way, or the other, we can, and should, recover and recycle the Carbon Dioxide emitted from our coal utilization processes. We don't have to be held hostage to punitive Cap & Trade taxes, nor do we have to suffer wealth-draining dependence on foreign powers for our liquid fuel needs.

Solvent Refined Coal

 
Herein is documented yet another unheralded and virtually unknown government-sponsored investigation of coal-to-liquid conversion technology.
 
Oddly enough, the goal of this government project, conducted in almost total obscurity on a military reservation about as far removed from the major eastern US Appalachian coal deposits as it is possible to get, was to obtain clean coal fuels, both liquid and solid, by first dissolving the coal - no doubt high-ash and low-Btu western lignite - in a solvent, much as in West Virginia University's direct coal liquefaction process.
 
In other words, they would first liquefy the coal, then clean it, and then either use the resulting liquids, or, almost perversely, according to this and other documents, reconsolidate it prior to use as a boiler fuel.
 
The excerpt: 

"Abstract

The operating history of a Solvent Refined Coal (SRC) Pilot Plant from start-up through March 1978 is discussed. The Solvent Refined Coal Process SRC I (solid fuel product) and SRC II (liquid fuel product) operating modes for converting high-sulfur, high-ash bituminous coals into low-sulfur, ash-free boiler fuels have been successfully demonstrated. Extended periods of operation with both operating modes have been achieved and substantial quantities of both the solid (more than 3500 tons) and liquid (nearly 6000 barrels or 954 cu m) fuels have been produced. A large scale burning test of the solid fuel product has been successfully concluded, and a similar test using the distillate fuel product is planned. A comprehensive study of the effects of operating variables on product yield distributions has been helpful in identifying the most favorable operating conditions in both modes of operation."
 
More on the Fort Lewis project to follow.

CTL in Alabama and Washington

 
Herein another detailed study on the industrial processing particulars of coal liquefaction processes; which should be something of an oddity, since you wouldn't, based on the public evidence, think there were many, if any, Coal-to-Liquid operations around to study.
 
The excerpt:
 
 

"Control of corrosion in coal liquefaction plant fractionation columns

James R. Keiser, Roddie R. Judkins, Alvin R. Irvine and Vivian B. Baylor
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 37830 Oak Ridge, Tennessee
 
Abstract  
 
Severe corrosion has been encountered in fractionation columns at the solvent refined coal (SRC) pilot plants in Fort Lewis, Washington, and Wilsonville, Alabama, as well as at the H-Coal Pilot plant in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, and the Exxon Donor Solvent Pilot Plant in Baytown, Texas. At the SRC plants, corrosion rates as high as 25 mm per year (one inch per year) on carbon steel and 6.4 mm per year (250 mils per year) on type 18-8 stainless steels have been measured in the portions of the columns operating at 220 to 260 °C (428 to 500 °F). Less severe corrosion is generally found at temperatures outside this range. The severity of this corrosion is related to the chlorine content of the coal. Studies of this corrosion problem by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) personnel included exposure of corrosion coupons in the pilot plant columns, analyses of liquids collected at the pilot plants, and performance of laboratory experiments. As a result of this work, we can specify alloys with adequate corrosion resistance for construction of fractionation columns, identify the chlorine-bearing compounds, and propose chlorine transport and corrosion mechanisms. Identification of the corrodent and its mechanisms enables us to suggest process changes to remove the corrodent and thereby to control the corrosion."
 
Like other studies we've cited, this is pretty detailed stuff. Our GUV guys and gals know a lot more about converting coal to liquid fuels than we know they know. If you know what we mean.
 
As we've documented, our government has had at least two coal-to-liquid conversion facilities up and running in the fairly recent past. And, there were quite a few of them in the decades following WWII. Did you ever hear of them before we reported their existence to you? Do you suppose much of anyone else in West Virginia, or the rest of Appalachian coal country, did either?