RTI International

"The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." -- Albert Einstein

The following article popped up during a recent browsing session …

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Proceedings of the Mini-Symposium “Coal Based Fuel Cell Technology: Status, Needs and Future Applications”. Morgantown WV, October 11-12, 2007 (NMS_07_P07 31)
A Review of Coal Syngas Cleanup Technologies, Past Trace Contaminant Testing, and Future SOFC Testing Activities at RTI
Jason Trembly, John Albritton, and Raghubir Gupta
RTI International, Center for Energy Technology, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle
Park, NC 27709, Tel: (919)-541-8033, E-mail: jtrembly@rti.org
ABSTRACT
Development of integrated gasification and fuel cell (IGFC) power plants has increased considerably over recent years due to the ability to produce electrical power at high efficiencies while being environmentally friendly. The development of these power generation systems is a key goal of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Although the ability of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) to operate on carbon based fuels such as natural gas has previously been reported the use of coal derived syngas as a fuel for SOFCs has only recently been investigated. The main components of coal derived syngas are known not to cause loss in SOFC performance; however the syngas may contain many trace species which may be detrimental towards operation. Although it is well known that H2S will need to be cleaned to sub-ppm concentrations the determination of the level of cleanup which will be required for other trace species contained in coal derived syngas has just recently commenced. A thorough understanding of the interactions between the SOFC anode and various species contained in coal derived syngas is required to develop coal based SOFC systems. RTI International is a leading developer of warm gas cleanup systems for IGCC and future IGFC power plants. This paper will review previous SOFC trace contaminant testing which has been completed and testing methodologies RTI is considering to develop trace contaminant clean up systems for IGFC power systems.
Free Full Text Source: http://nift.wvu.edu/Symposium2007/papers/NMS_07_P07.pdf
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RTI International (www.rit.org) is one of the world’s leading nonprofit research institutes, dedicated to improving the human condition by turning knowledge into practice. Its staff of more than 3,700 provides research and technical expertise to governments and businesses in more than 75 countries.

I found more articles describing RTI syngas research by searching Google® Scholar using this statement …

“RTI International” coal

The quotes tell Google® to search RTI International as a phrase.  Here is one result …

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International Journal of Clean Coal and Energy, Vol.2 No.3(2013), Article ID:36046,19 pages DOI:10.4236/ijcce.2013.23005
Implementation of a Demoisturization and Devolatilization Model in Multi-Phase Simulation of a Hybrid Entrained-Flow and Fluidized Bed Mild Gasifier
Jobaidur Khan, Ting Wang
Energy Conversion & Conservation Center, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, USA
Email: jrkhan@uno.edu, twang@uno.edu
Copyright © 2013 Jobaidur Khan, Ting Wang. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
ABSTRACT
A mild gasification process has been implemented to provide an alternative form of clean coal technology called the Integrated Mild Gasification Combined Cycle (IMGCC), which can be utilized to build a new, highly efficient, and compact power plant or to retrofit an existing coal-fired power plant in order to achieve lower emissions and significantly improved thermal efficiency. The core technology of the mild gasification power plant lies on the design of a compact and effective mild gasifier that can produce synthesis gases with high energy volatiles through a hybrid system: utilizing the features of both entrained-flow and fluidized bed gasifiers. To aid in the design of the mild gasifier, a computational model has been implemented to investigate the thermal-flow and gasification process inside this mild gasifier using the commercial CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) solver ANSYS/FLUENT. The Eulerian-Eulerian method is employed to model both the primary phase (air) and the secondary phase (coal particles). However, the Eulerian-Eulerian model used in the software does not facilitate any built-in devolatilization model. The objective of this study is therefore to implement a devolatilization model (along with demoisturization) and incorporate it into the existing code. The Navier-Stokes equations and seven species transport equations are solved with three heterogeneous (gassolid) and two homogeneous (gas-gas) global gasification reactions. Implementation of the complete model starts from adding demoisturization first, then devolatilization, and then adding one chemical equation at a time until finally all reactions are included in the multiphase flow. The result shows that the demoisturization and devolatilization models are successfully incorporated and a large amount of volatiles are preserved as high-energy fuels in the syngas stream without being further cracked or reacted into lighter gases. The overall results are encouraging but require future experimental data for verification.
Free Full Text Source: http://file.scirp.org/Html/3-2380008_36046.htm
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LUMPS OF COAL: Finding Review Literature

I think of doing a series as very hard work. But then I've talked to coal miners, and that's really hard work. --
 William Shatner

My background is in the oil and gas industry, so my focus in this blog has been on the desulfurization of petroleum products.

However, with this post I begin to explore the desulfurization of coal and coal products.  I have to admit that I am not a big fan of coal.  But I do understand that the industrialized world will continue to use coal for quite some time.

That being the case, the development of technologies that will minimize the environmental impact of the coal life cycle is critical.

Since I am not familiar with clean coal research, I began by searching Google® Scholar for review literature.  I used the following search statement:

coal desulfurization review

Here is one of the reviews resulting from the search, along with a couple of excerpts …

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Proceedings of the Mini-Symposium “Coal Based Fuel Cell Technology:
Status, Needs and Future Applications”. Morgantown WV, October 11-12, 2007
NMS_07_P07 31
A Review of Coal Syngas Cleanup Technologies, Past Trace Contaminant Testing, and Future SOFC Testing Activities at RTI
Jason Trembly (1), John Albritton (1), and Raghubir Gupta (1)
jtrembly@rti.org
1 RTI International, Center for Energy Technology, 3040 Cornwallis Road, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, Tel: (919)-541-8033
INTRODUCTION
Advanced IGFC power systems have become of particular interest to the U.S. DOE over recent years due to their potential to operate at efficiencies as high as 60 percent with CO2 capture [1]. In order for a gasifier to be integrated with an SOFC in an IGFC power plant, the syngas must be cleaned of contaminants that could damage the SOFC stack or contribute to environmental emissions. Syngas contaminants that need to be removed before the SOFC stack include particulates, sulfur gases (primarily H2S and COS), ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen chloride, alkali, and heavy metals (Hg, As, Se and Cd). Conventional gas cleaning is typically completed by scrubbing the syngas using chemical or physical solvents that require cooling the gas to below 100ºF (10ºC). However, the need to cool the gas to ambient temperature requires the use of additional equipment (heat exchangers, knockout pots, condensate handling system, etc.). In addition, the cooling of the gas, which must ultimately be reheated before being sent to the fuel cell, introduces a thermodynamic penalty on the overall system.

The paper briefly highlights coal based SOFC testing areas which will need to be addressed in the near future in order to develop high temperature trace contaminant cleanup for IGFC power systems.

Free Full Text Source: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnift.wvu.edu%2FSymposium2007%2Fpapers%2FNMS_07_P07.pdf&ei=AtWlUs2FF4nIyAHtl4GADQ&usg=AFQjCNEpwA7HojeuAN3iq9ylo_6DQ93EqA&sig2=EAhSH2zfUZ8T5tcioiYRkA&bvm=bv.57752919,d.aWc&cad=rja 
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It's All in the Presentation

“The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires constantly to be wound up” -- William Hazlitt (British Writer, 1778-1830)
All of us are asked, from time to time, to make a presentation of some sort.  Today’s post aims to help you get started on preparing a presentation when the clock is ticking.

When you are presenting to an audience of colleagues who are conversant with the topic, you probably already have a good framework in mind when preparing the presentation.

Other times, however, you are presenting to an audience who has, at best, only a vague notion of basic concepts of your topic.  The audience may be composed of corporate executives, laypeople, or even scientists in other fields of research.

Preparing for such an audience requires a different strategy.  I suggest that you begin with two quick sources that will provide the parameters you need to begin organizing your thoughts.

Wikipedia
Google
Wikipedia is viewed askance by many in the technical community.  Push prejudice to one side … look at Wikipedia as a good source for helping you to frame the basic concepts you wish to convey, in a way that non-experts can understand.

Pretend, for the moment, that you have been asked to present on the topic of sulfur as it affects solid oxide fuel cells.
First, visit Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) and enter the search string “solid oxide fuel cell”

The result includes  …

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Result of Wikipedia search: “solid oxide fuel cell”
[EXCERPT]"
Introduction
“Solid oxide fuel cells are a class of fuel cell characterized by the use of a solid oxide material as the electrolyte. SOFCs use a solid oxide electrolyte to conduct negative oxygen ions from the cathode to the anode. The electrochemical oxidation of the oxygen ions with hydrogen or carbon monoxide thus occurs on the anode side. More recently, Proton Conducting SOFCs (PC-SOFC) are being developed which transport protons instead of oxygen ions through the electrolyte with the advantage of being able to be run at lower temperatures than traditional SOFCs.

“They operate at very high temperatures, typically between 500 and 1,000 °C. At these temperatures, SOFCs do not require expensive platinum catalyst material, as is currently necessary for lower temperature fuel cells such as PEMFCs, and are not vulnerable to carbon monoxide catalyst poisoning. However, vulnerability to sulfur poisoning has been widely observed and the sulfur must be removed before entering the cell through the use of adsorbent beds or other means.”///////

Second, visit Google©.  This is trickier than Wikipedia, because, as you know, you can spend days wandering in the Google desert until you stumble on that oasis of information that you can actually use.  Plus, since time is of the essence, you want to restrict results to full text.  Try this …

Google Search String tip: in the search box, enter the following search string …
sulfur "solid oxide fuel" pdf
Results will include only items that include the words sulfur and PDF, and the phrase “solid oxide fuel.”

One result, for example, is the following thesis.  Theses are excellent for this purpose.  They nearly always include a thorough discussion of the background of the thesis topic, and a sentence or two describing why the author thinks he can contribute to progress in the field.

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SULFUR-TOLERANT CATALYST FOR THE SOLID OXIDE FUEL CELLA thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering

 Joe Frank Bozeman Iii (2010)Master of Science in Engineering (MSEgr), Wright State University, Renewable and Clean Energy, 2010
Abstract
JP-8 fuel is easily accessible, transportable, and has hydrogen content essential to solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) operation. However, this syngas has sulfur content which results in a poisonous hydrogen sulfide that degrades electrochemical activity and causes complete SOFC failure in some cases. The goal is to synthesize and verify a cost-effective, catalyst supported on cerium oxide that either stabilizes ionic conductivity in the presence of hydrogen sulfide and/or is highly sulfur-resistant. After thorough computational analysis, it was concluded that the platinum-copper skin catalyst was the most cost-effective, sulfur-resistant catalyst. Experimental synthesis of copper, platinum, and platinum-copper skin catalysts supported on cerium oxide was verified. Further experimentation must be performed to establish the platinum-copper skin catalyst supported on cerium oxide operational affects on the SOFC system in a sulfur environment.
Full Text Available At: http://etd.ohiolink.edu/view.cgi/Bozeman%20Joe%20Frank%20III.pdf?wright1276835949 ///////

So, the next time you are presented with a presentation project …

Visit Wikipedia
Explore Google (or Yahoo! or Bing) with a carefully crafted keyword search

And remember to bookmark the Desulfurization Blog (www.desulf.blogspot.com) for future time-saver tips on researching the technology of your choosing.  Better still, add a feed of the Blog to your organization’s Web.

Remember CTRL-F

“When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.” -- Mark Twain (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910)

The K.I.S.S. principle states, “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”  Now, I’m not stupid, and if you follow this blog, neither are you.  But it is easy to forget, sometimes, how some of the simplest techniques can simplify one’s life.

CTRL-F falls into the category of easily forgotten simple techniques.

For example, when searching ScienceDirect using this search string …

Solid oxide fuel cell sulfur

… you will be presented with several hundred results, even if you limit the search to the current year.

Let’s say you are in a hurry.  You want to view only those results that have the word sulfur somewhere in the little snippet that appears on the results list.

What do you do? Hit CTRL-F.  This command opens up a search box where you can type in the word sulfur.  Click “Next” to jump to each entry on the page that contains the word.   The word you seek will be highlighted in each entry.

The same technique works when you are searching patents.  For example, search Google Patents (http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en) using the same search string as above, i.e. …

Solid oxide fuel cell sulfur

The results include the following …

High Temperature Fuel Cell System and Method of Operating the Same

Inventors: Swaminathan Venkataraman, Matthias Gottmann, John Finn

Original Assignee: Bloom Energy Corporation

source: http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=PlPrAQAAEBAJ&dq=solid+oxide+fuel+cell+sulfur

Now, patents are a rich source of technical information.  But finding the part of the patent that most interests you can be very time consuming.  How can you focus on those parts of the patent that pertain to sulfur?  Once again, CTRL-F to the rescue!

CTRL-F works for those PDF files that open up without the tool ribbon at the top.  Hit CTRL-F and the PDF search box opens up.

This blog is all about making it easy to find technical literature on the Web … many of the tips may be old news to you, but remember the newer member of your team.  Help them get up to speed by suggesting they follow the Desulfurization Blog (http://www.desulf.blogspot.com/)