The Future for Emerging Energy Technologies

The Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy, through the National Energy Technology Laboratory, supports a variety of R&D initiatives to develop alternative clean fuels and chemicals from fossil sources, including coal, natural gas and biomass.  A key R&D element of the current Fuels Program is the development and demonstration of advanced separation membranes for the production of hydrogen in advanced IGCC power systems for subsequent use as a turbine fuel or conversion to environmentally benign fuels and chemicals.  Other research areas focus on the development of modifications necessary for combined coal/biomass conversion which include co-feeding to the gasifier, evaluation of the differences in reaction kinetics and reaction products of the gasification process and the effects of additional biomass contaminants on downstream water gas shift (WGS) and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) conversion catalysts.  This presentation will provide an overview of DOE’s ongoing R&D initiatives for the co-production of power and fuels/chemicals from coal and coal/biomass mixtures in advanced IGCC systems.