Coal Liquefaction

Coal
• Combustible black or
brownish sediment rock
• Layer and layer of dead
plant remain annually
• Largest source of
energy for electricity
worldwide
 Utilizing Coal
• Steam power boats
• Generate electricity
• Liquefy into gasoline
 Coal Power Plant
• 54% of U.S electricity generated from coal
• Yet, it’s the largest air polluter
• 500 megawatts=1.4 million tons of coal annually
• Coal plants require billions of gallons of water to
cool the system
• Mining pollutes water, land and air
 Why Liquefaction?
• Alternative to importing petroleum in
China’s case because abundant coal supply
• Many different types of fuel like methanol,
diesel, gasoline, H2 and dimethyl ether
• Fuel trucks, planes and other machines in
where petroleum is limited
 Methods
• Direct
– Coal + Hydrogen (H2) Linear + Ring Type
Hydrocarbons ( CxHy Catalyst )
• Indirect
– Gasifcation: Coal + Oxygen + Steam Syngas (H2 +
CO)
– Syngas Conversion: H2 + CO Linear Hydrocarbons
(CxHy) or Chemicals
Direct Coal Liquefaction
 Hydrogenation
• A chemical reaction that results in the addition
of hydrogen (H2)
• Usually to reduce or saturated the organic
compounds
• At high temperatures the addition of hydrogen
to hydrocarbons does not require a catalyst
• Under 480 C the catalyst are platinum,
palladium, rhodium and ruthenium
 Carbonization
• Converting organic substance into carbon or
residue by pryolysis (heating)
• Convert coal to coal gas or tar
• Also used to turn biomass to coal/ biodiesel
Indirect Coal Liquefaction
 Gasifcation
• Combusting the substances and reacting them
with CO and H, which forms syngas or synfuel
• Expose the coal with high heat with a
controlled amount of O2; allows combustion
• Char reacts with CO2 and steam to make the
syngas, but some of the CO2 is locked in char
 Synfuel Production
• Sasol’s the only company producing 150,000
barrels per day in South Africa
• They use the indirect method to produce
synfuel
• No engine modifcation is required
 China’s Project
• Planned 5 million tons of oil product per year
• Demo about one million tons of oil
• Located Inner Mongolia
• Direct and Indirect methods of Liquefaction
Shenhua Group
 Pro’s of Coal to Liquid
• U.S has more coal than any other country;
almost as cheap as dirt
• Concept has been used since 1913 and during
WWII with the Nazi
• New catalyst improve the process of
liquefaction
• Make natural gas out of dirty coal
 Great Point company

Andrew Perlman showing how coal

can be converted to natural gas.
 Con’s of Coal to Liquid
• Air pollution, lots of CO2 is released in the
making of synfuel
• Destroying mountains for coal pollutes the
environment and release more CO2
• Car’s will still produce CO2 from synfuel
• Expensive to transport coal and convert to
liquid/useable fuel
 Resources
• http://www.mpowerfuels.com/projects.html
• http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-coal-liquefaction.htm
• http://www.covol.com/data/upFiles/moreinfo/DCL%20Technology%
20Presentation%203.31.09.pdf
• http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c01.html
• http://www.princeton.edu/pei/energy/publications/texts/indirect.p
df
• http://blogs.princeton.edu/chm333/f2005/group2/panflute
%20flowchart%20151.JPG
• http://members.tripod.com/comb_group/cl.html
• http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/coal/liquids.pdf
• http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5356683