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New Process Allows Fuel Cells To Run On Coal
Zothecula writes "Lately we're hearing a lot about the green energy potential of fuel cells, particularly hydrogen fuel cells. Unfortunately, although various methods of hydrogen production are being developed, it still isn't as inexpensive or easily obtainable as fossil fuels such as coal. Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology, however, have recently taken a step towards combining the eco-friendliness of fuel cell technology with the practicality of fossil fuels — they've created a fuel cell that runs on coal gas."
It is a type of fish, red in colour. Often smoked.
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This is excellent - we now have another way to use up the diminishing supplies of fossil fuels even faster! What will they think of next?
Coalgas is what you get when you break down coal to things like hydrogen and water and co. you can run anything on that gas. No need for a fuel cell.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The fuel cells are also said to capture about half of the energy in the coal gas, as opposed to the third captured by burning.
and
Because solid oxide fuel cells have traditionally operated best at temperatures above 850C (1,562F), they have had to be made from relatively expensive heat-resistant materials. When treated with barium oxide and running on coal gas, however, they can operate at temperatures as low as 750C (1,382F).
How much energy does it take to gasify coal? - Deduct that. Also deduct the energy required to keep the fuel cell at 750C. Fuel cells currently run about 40% efficient, so multiple the previous number by 0.4. It's going to be a lot less than 30%.
Unlike hydrogen fuel cells, these ones do create carbon dioxide in the course of operation. Part of that CO2 is reused, however, for gasifying the coal. The rest is in a much more pure form than that produced simply by the burning of coal in a power plant, so extensive separation and purification wouldn't be required for sequestration.
So what CO2 sequestration are they envisaging? I'm not aware of anything that is truly commercial yet, except for the paper accounting job of claiming biomass production for a CO2 removal brownie point.
How much energy
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
The point of a fuel cell would be to burn fossil fuels more efficiently.
Dog is my co-pilot.
If they genetically modified seals to be long like a weasel, it would take fewer baby seals to make a coat and therefore be more humane.
Perhaps genetically modified to be more like a manatee for more fat and less brains for fuel seals.
Seals should definitely be farmed, I commend you on the idea and give you the full credit.
I bet seals taste somewhere between pork and fish. Hmmm another white meat.
mmmmm,seal bacon......
Any way you burn coal, the result is CO2
We may have enough coal to last us a thousand years, but nowhere on the planet would be inhabitable by then.
Did anyone else read the headline as "New Princess Allows Fuel Cells To Run On Coal"? Though I suspect she's in another castle.
than oil. Plus, using fuel cells to generate electricity is generally more fuel-wise efficient than trying to do it via combustion - so far , combined cycles (and there's few of those) have efficiencies between 50-60 % IIRC - in other words technology like this will make our stockpiles last *longer* not shorter.
I'd actually buy that, just to piss off the overbearing Greens movement of today and their insane and self-destructive attitude on power generation.
but, will it require that the coal be clean FIRST? If so that will be difficult. But if all it emits is CO2, and water, that is not that bad. This is then no different than running natural gas, so that at large plants, the CO2 can be directed into the ground.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually for those suddenly curious seal in my experience is a little gamey very dark and extremely oily, it's almost comparable to a fishy version of the liver of larger game like caribou, moose, or I suppose beef. I've not tried seal blubber but I've had whale skin and blubber which... well tastes mostly like you'd expect it to.
Whatever happened to just carbon fuel cells?
from 2005: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7891-coalpowered-fuel-cell-aims-for-efficiency.html
and some unknown date: https://www.llnl.gov/str/June01/Cooper.html
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
This is nothing really new. Back in the Late 1970's and early 1980 I was part of a team at SRI international that used Bituminous coal as the fuel source for a molten Carbonate fuel cell that ran at near 500 deg C. The eutectic combination of Sodium Potassium and Lithium Carbonate would absorb the Sulfur, and ash content of the Bituminous coal. I found that series 300 stainless steal would form a very nice passivation layer as long as there was some oxygen around inside the fuel cell, so the cell could be contained in relatively cheap 316 steel. The molten carbonate would need to be cleaned every so often to remove the sulfur, and other solid ash from the coal. The output of the fuel cell was about 1.2 volts, and pure CO2. The only processing of the bituminous coal that was necessary was to solidify the bituminous coal into an electrode with a wire mesh of conductive wire that would not be corroded by the molten carbonate at 500 degree C. NO GASIFICATION WAS REQUIRED. from our experiments the fuel cell plant would have an overall efficiency of about 35 - 40% which is much higher than coal burning plants, plus all the sulfur, and ash would be contained in the molten carbonate rather tan spewed into the atmosphere. The project was killed when the Government deemed in the early 1980's that we were beyond the research stage, and the team at SRI international and EPRI could not find funding for a pilot plant operations. if you are interested in furthering this project, you just need to look for papers with the authrs of Robert Weaver, Steven Leach and/or Michael McKubre. There are papers in the EPRI archives, as SRI international reports and in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.
The problem with Gasification is the SULFUR, and the FLY ASH from the coal. SULFUR KILLS Fuel cells that use most catalyst , and fly ash is the BIGGEST issue with coal burning plants. I wish this tam all the best in commercializing this process, but I also know that while this process will be more efficient than using steam conversion teh biggest issue will be the SULFUR and Fly ASH.
GOOD LUCK and may the US Government and the big power cartel treat you better than they treated our team.
I think a lot of fisherman on the Pacific coast of the US would buy it. Some seal species are now LC (Least Concern) and they eat fish. Dead seals turn up on the beach with gunshot wounds sometimes. You know no matter how overpopulated they get, there will never be a seal hunt. If anything needs protection it's the sharks which also eat seals. Well you know, in a world dominated by humans, cuteness is a survival strategy. I shudder to imagine the sparkly hello kitty world we will inhabit if this continues for a million years.
Hello kitty shark. Ugh.
UGGGGGH. Thanks for that mental image.
Next thing you hear is that coal may be a very usefull energy source. of course you van run coal gas through a fuel cell, it's called the bloom box.But you don't want to because emissions are exterminating us!
Baby seals are no longer killed for their coats. This is a myth continued only because it generates sympathy and revenue for whomever shows those images.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
These guys are working on a new SOFC catalyst that will allow them to run gasified coal at lower temperatures without running into problems with coking. The basic idea is to gasify coal and then use internal reforming (a standard benefit of SOFC technology) to reform the hydrocarbons into CO and H2 which can be used directly as fuels. The new part is that this new catalyst is capable of running at lower temperatures without seeing a buildup of carbon, generally this is a problem that is solved by higher temperatures/power densities (which causes faster degradation) or more steam injection (more water needed).
The problem itself was the entire goal of the SECA program in the US because there is so much coal, and this gets better efficiency than just burning it normally. However, it looks like funding is on the way out for these programs, fossil fuel guys don't like fuel cells and vice versa. Most of the big players, GE, Siemens, etc have already bailed.
Some companies that use similar technology: Versa Power (US & Canada), Bloom Energy (US), Staxera (GE), Ceres Power (UK), CFCL (AU) and others
Coal is a hydrocarbon whose molecular structure means it has more carbon in it per amount of energy extractable than does, for example, crude oil.
Coal has roughly twice as much carbon.
Using coal for energy produces roughly twice as much CO2 as using oil, which is bad enough.
If you had really effective sequestration, maybe this could work, but sequestration is really, really expensive, still basically untested for long-term storage ability, and no where near 100 percent effective.
Leave the coal in the ground and turn your deserts into solar farms and mountains into wind farms instead.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
You know no matter how overpopulated they get, there will never be a seal hunt.
But there's a seal hunt every year.
This sounds like it has the potential to replace coal burning power plants that refuse to switch to another fuel. Outside of that, I don't see wider use of coal as a fuel as a good solution. Extracting it does more carbon harm than any other fuel source I can think of.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Are you using the 300 stainless as a container for the electrolyte or the air electrode? What about the 316 stainless? I'd love to make one of these as an experiment. I'd also like to see what you think about the idea of using charcoal instead of coal for this system? Thanks for posting this. I've been reading this old research. Please get an account here so more people can read your posts!
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
I see what you did there.
What is with all the gizmag source stories. So much of the stuff I've read from them ends up to be bunk science.
Carbon harm ... sigh, can anyone tell me how much carbon dioxide it takes to increase global temperature by even 0.1 C? We don't know a gosh darn thing about the true interaction between CO2 and Temperature other then from the ice records that show that CO2 increases after the planet temperature increases. We don't know to what extent the so-called greenhouse effect actually contributes to global temperature. Getting all super sensitive about this stuff is not being smart ... its buying into hysteria.
Great idea.... can we get the money back that was WASTED on this hairbrained idea?
Getting all super sensitive about this stuff is not being smart ... its buying into hysteria.
"Better safe than sorry" I suppose the chances of a car crossing my path at 3:30 AM on a Sunday morning are vanishingly small, however, I always stop at the red-lights and stop signs anyway.
We really only get one shot at this planet. What's more foolish: Being needlessly careful or being heedlessly careless?
Exponential growth in wind and solar deployment suggests we may have a period of excess capacity just as happened with nuclear power in the 1980's. However, there is no reason not to find a use for the generation since there is no fuel cost. For pure CO2 streams such as one gets from cement production, it may be worthwhile to strip the oxygen away to produce either a stockpilable fuel or a soil amendment that sequesters the carbon. Most fuel cells will run backwards with electric input so this technology may be useful for that.
This year they bagged an Osama.
This is probably gonna sound stupid, but I don't care if it does because I'm genuinely curious. Aside from the damage to the scenery, are there any environmental consequences of shaving off the top of a mountain? I can't think of any offhand (that's not to say they don't exist; I'm genuinely ignorant of them).
Yes, It tends to increase erosion, and dump large quantities of soil and pulverised rock into local streams. Poor management of tailings seems to be endemic - possibly because it really is hard to maintain the integrity of a pile of dust. The physical effects alone can be damaging - diverting streams, killing plant life by blocking light, with knock-on effects of the whole ecosystem and water supply to local residents. Often the tailings from mines are chemically active, adding direct poisoning and other issues to the ecosystem damage.
In theory this could all be managed to minimise the effects. But it seems it often goes wrong.