ExxonMobil Working with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to Develop Advanced Gasification Technology
03 October 2008
ExxonMobil and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne are working together to develop and test new gasification technology to improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of converting coal, coke or biomass to synthesis gas.
The work focuses on the development of a gasification-reactor system, which has the potential to offer significant advantages compared to conventional approaches, according to the partners. Key features of PWR’s rocket-engine expertise—uniform feed distribution, high temperature combustion and rapid heat removal—are utilized, resulting in a smaller and more cost effective system.
Work has begun on pilot plants to test the technology at the Gas Technologies Institute in Des Plaines, Illinois, and the Energy and Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota. ExxonMobil is also cooperating with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to assist in identifying potential interested parties for demonstration.
The instant gasification processes, being promoted at the moment and in this research, ignore the highly valuable chemicals that can be extracted from coal if a mild gassification process is used. Even some liquid fuels can be extracted. The noun Coal-Oil does indeed represent a jet fuel like liquid used in lamps with wicks instead of kerosine. Ammonia is also extracted and can be used for fertilizer. At the current price of crude oil, enough liquids may be extracted directly from coal right at the mine at a lower price than crude oil. The solid carbon residues can then be gasified with the proposed process and preferably converted into methanol for long term storage or for immediate use. Very small gasification systems like Porta locomotive GPCS can ignore byproducts but larger systems should be declared inefficient if they do. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 03 October 2008 at 09:04 PM
So, finally Exxon agrees that there is not enough oil in the world. Instead of hanging on to gasolene, why not they move to CNG.
There are 9 million CNG powered vehicles in the World.
US has only 100,000 among them.
http://ngvgroup.com/pdf/gvr80-092008.pdf
I guess, Exxon is going to be dumped on the way.
Posted by: Max Reid | 05 October 2008 at 08:19 PM
Posted by: Reality Czech | 06 October 2008 at 11:24 AM