The Department of Energy plans to award a research team as much as $15 million to improve "coal refinery" technology that could turn U.S. coal into a slate of solids, liquids, and gases.
The Illinois Coal Development Board will provide another $3 million in funds for the project, which will build and operate an experimental plant to test a "mild gasification" process.
Kerr-McGee Coal Corp., working with Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Institute of Gas Technology, and Bechtel Corp., will build the plant at the Illinois Coal Development Park near Carterville, III. The 3 year project will test Illinois, Wyoming, and West Virginia coals.
The plant will convert 24 tons/day into solid and liquid products that can be used as fuels or chemicals and a gas that will be burned as a source of heat for the plant's operations.
DOE pointed out that most U.S. coal is burned to produce electrical power, but the coal refinery approach could make it a source of chemical building blocks for other products.
The Kerr-McGee team will test a technology that produces a solid char that can be further processed into fist size briquettes called "form coke." Those briquettes can be used in blast furnaces as a substitute for traditional coke in steelmaking.
DOE said because blast furnace coke sells for $90-150/ton, compared with $20-40/ton for raw coal, form coke production could justify commercial scale use of the technology.
It said many aging coke ovens face tightening environmental restrictions, and coke-producing coal refineries could offer an environmentally sound option for future steel plants and industrial foundries.
Liquids produced by the process are expected to be marketable with little processing to companies that manufacture materials such as rooting and road binders, electrode binders, and various chemicals. The liquids also could be upgraded to produce gasoline and diesel fuel.
Mild gasification methods heat coal in the absence of oxygen to give off volatile gases and liquids, leaving behind a solid char. Mild gasification processes coal under lower temperatures and pressures than in a typical coal gasification process, and some of the coal remains intact in the form of solid char after the liquids and gases are produced.
DOE said smaller scale laboratory and engineering tests showed the mild gasification concept has promise.
Form coke from the project will be tested in blast furnaces by LTV Steel, Cleveland, and Armco Inc., Parsippany, N.J. General Motors Research Laboratories and Pellet Technology Corp., Houghton, Mich., will test the form coke in an industrial foundry. Reilly Industries Inc., Indianapolis, will test and further refine the coal liquids.
DOE chose the Kerr-McGee team over three other proposed demonstration projects.
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