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Penn State Live - Sunlight turns carbon dioxide to methane
We have reported on Carbon Dioxide recycling efforts, both commercial and academic, underway around the US, in support of our contention that CO2, whether arising from our use of coal to generate power or to synthesize much-needed liquid fuels, should be seen, and treated, as a valuable by-product of coal use, as a raw material resource.
Herein, from Penn State University, we present more credible evidence in support of that thesis.
Some excerpts:
"University Park, Pa. - Dual catalysts may be the key to efficiently turning carbon dioxide and water vapor into methane and other hydrocarbons using titania nanotubes and solar power, according to Penn State researchers."
"Craig A. Grimes, professor of electrical engineering and his team used titanium dioxide nanotubes doped with nitrogen and coated with a thin layer of both copper and platinum to convert a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapor to methane. Using outdoor, visible light, they reported a 20-times higher yield of methane than previously published attempts conducted in laboratory conditions using intense ultraviolet exposures."
"The researchers are now working on converting their batch reactor into a continuous flow-through design that they believe will significantly increase yields."
"The researchers have filed a provisional patent on this work."
Methane can be converted to Methanol via several established processes, including the use of "industrialized" bacteria, and new, more efficient processes are being developed at numerous research sites, including the University of Massachusetts and Stanford.
And, as you by now know, commercial processes exist to convert methanol to gasoline, as in Exxon-Mobil's "MTG" process.
It's long been known, and well-documented, that chemically-active Carbon Monoxide, which can be obtained through the chemical reduction of nearly-inert Carbon Dioxide, can be used to synthesize gaseous and liquid fuels, and valuable chemicals. One obstacle to the commercial implementation of that process is that it takes a lot of energy to reduce CO2 into CO. Penn State researchers have apparently found a way to accomplish the needed reduction, or even to bypass it entirely, by using the freely-available power of the sun.
Carbon Dioxide is a valuable raw material resource. It should be treated as a prized by-product generated from our varied processes of coal utilization.
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US ENCOAL® Mild Coal Gasification to Oil Plant CCT | BioEnergy Lists: Gasifiers & Gasification
This dispatch is to introduce the Encoal (R) Coal-to-Oil project, sponsored by the US DOE.
DOE reports on this Coal-to-Liquid demonstration project are available, but only in PDF format, which is difficult for us to manage.
Via separate dispatches, we will transmit links to those DOE files, but, from the link enclosed herein, we present an excerpt, with a comment following:
"US ENCOAL® Mild Coal Gasification to Oil Plant CCT
Submitted by Tom Miles on Fri, 2008-10-24 18:23
Last updated October 24, 2008
US ENCOAL® Mild Coal Gasification to Oil Plant CCT
George R. Brigliadoro , SURE NRG LLC, October 2008
The Encoal Plant Process 100% of the Coal to Clean Energy Leaving Zero Leftover Wasted or Hazardous Materials
1. Produces ½ Barrel of Oil Per Ton of Coal
2. Produces ½ Ton of High Rank Coal Per Ton of Low Rank Coal
3. Can Process 100% of Used Tire Rubber
4. Produces 600 Barrels of Light Crude Oil and 400 Tons of Carbon Black from 1,000 Tons of Tires
(We had earlier suggested that discarded tires could be a co-feed, with coal, for an appropriately-designed coal-to-liquid fuel facility, and cited some references to that effect. This citation seems to further affirm that assertion.- JtM)
Engineering is Complete to Produce 15,000 to 30,000 Tons Per Day
1. Producing up to 15,000 Barrels of Oil Per Day and 15,000 Tons of High Rank Coal Per Day
2. A 1,000 Ton Per Day Plant is for Sale
3. The Engineering fore 15,000 to 30,000 Tones Per Day is also Available
4. Technology License Agreements are Available
5. Personal are Available to Assist in Construction, Engineering and Plant Start-UP"
Mike, this represents another opportunity for coal to serve both our economic need for a domestic supply of affordable liquid fuel, and our environmental need to clean up and recycle a type of "waste" - used auto tires - that have not previously presented a truly attractive, or economically productive, option for doing so.
Coal-to-Oil, as we've been asserting, could, and should, be a "Green" that benefits both our economy and our environment, and it should be developed and promoted as such.
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Mike,
In China, where they're busily at work building a series of coal-to-liquid plants that will ensure their domestic energy self-sufficiency, they are also using CTL as an opportunity to create additional products, as we've been suggesting.
Some excerpts:
"Coal gasification-converting coal into gas for use as a feedstock for making chemicals like olefin and methanol-has been a pioneering project.... But its viability faces the intractable problem of waste gases being released into the environment. In response, advanced air separation was introduced to remove impurities from waste gases, making them reusable for synthetic ammonia and urea production. Carbon dioxide released from coal-fired power generation is also piped back in for use in urea production, effectively eliminating air pollution."
"The ashes left over from coal burning are used to make cement and other construction materials, while wastewater is also purified for circulation. In addition, all coal is required to go through desulphurization before burning for power generation to protect the environment and minimize the erosion of metal equipment."
Now, granted, all this is state-published information about a semi-state-run operation in a nation that's very sensitive about criticism from the outside. But, all of what they are proposing to do as far as protecting the environment, and reusing "wastes" from the coal conversion process as raw materials for other things, is both feasible and practical, as we have from other sources documented.
And, the Chinese are pragmatic, almost to a fault. If they are going to do all those things they say they are, then those things are probably worth, in a practical way, doing.
WVU has been involved in China's efforts, Mike, according to news releases we've previously brought to your attention. It might even be the "West Virginia Process" the Chinese are using to convert their coal into liquid fuels and chemicals.
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We had earlier written you of the planned Mingo County, WV, coal-to-liquid conversion facility. This story presents an update of the project.
Some excerpts, with highlights and parenthetical comments:
"A proposed $3 billion Mingo County coal-to-liquid fuel plant is now in the air quality part of the permitting process."
"The goal is to put the plant, which could eventually use up to three million tons of locally mined coal to make more than 6.5 million barrels of gasoline every year, into operation by 2013."
(Note that this estimate of yield indicates technology improvements have been made on coal conversion technologies about which we've earlier reported - suggesting in those reports that yields would likely improve as the CTL technology developed and advanced. - JtM)
"As for the carbon that's produced in the process, company officials say they're willing to look at carbon sequestration but they would rather Congress open up pipelines to allow the carbon to be moved from West Virginia to the Gulf Coast where it could be injected into existing oil fields to help with oil production."
(We would rather see some more "advanced" thinking applied to CO2 - it could be converted into more liquid fuel, as we've documented. But, if they do plan to just pump it underground, they are at least trying to accomplish something constructive - enhanced oil recovery - by doing so. - JtM)
"Herholdt (State Division of Energy Director Jeff Herholdt) says the Mingo County project would be leading the way in coal-to-liquids. But, he says, others need to follow suit."
""We are challenged to meet the liquid fuel needs of the future and coal-to-liquids plants certainly will represent one of our best opportunities to continue our dependence on liquid fuels," Herholdt tells MetroNews."
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DSpace at IIT Bombay: Fischer-Tropsch synthesis using bio-syngas and CO2
This article comes from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.
We submit it in support of our thesis that CO2, arising from what should be our many, varied uses of coal, can be captured and recycled into additional liquid fuels and commercially useful organic chemicals. Carbon Dioxide is not so much a harmful pollutant arising from our use of coal as it is a by-product of high, but as yet unrealized, value.
The excerpt:
"While Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) using coal and natural gas in conventional reactors is an almost well-established technology, (not in WV or the US, apparently - JtM) the production of liquid hydrocarbons from syngas obtained from biomass is in its preliminary stages of commercialization in countries like Germany. With concerns about global warming and ways of disposing of CO2 being searched for, CO2 hydrogenation using FTS to liquid hydrocarbons can act as a CO2 sink. A brief review of FTS using CO2-rich syngas is given in this paper, looking at FTS as a technology that can help reduce global warming (as we have been saying - JtM) and as a process integration alternative. The reverse water gas shift (r-WGS) reaction is vital for CO2 hydrogenation. We have studied the effect of this using an FT kinetic model and have proposed a new flow sheet alternative for FTS using CO2-rich syngas. Simulations suggested that this new process gives better conversion of CO2. The product selectivity and yields from an FT plant are vital to make the process viable economically."
In other words, Mike, full implementation of coal-to-liquid technology, which would recycle, as is demonstrated to be feasible and practical, the emissions from coal conversion, including and especially Carbon Dioxide, could "help reduce global warming".
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