Termotehnika

Coal in the 21st century: Electricity, clean environment and advanced materials

• Despite all the talk about the need for greater air pollution controls, about the rise of renewable energies, and even about global warming, there is little doubt that coal will remain an important energy source through out much of the 21st century, especially so in the less developed nations. So while the politicians and economists sort out their energy policies, the challenge for scientists and engineers into day’s globalized economy is to devise suitable strategies for continued, but more profitable and environmentally friendlier uses of coals of varying rank and from different parts of the world. Clearly, pulverized coal combustion will remain important, but in a way that minimizes both the NOx emissions and the fraction of un burned carbon, so that the ash can be converted to a higher-value-added product. Fluidized-bed combustion makes sense for high-sulfur coals, especially if gypsum can be commercialized. With its improved efficiency and elegant solution to conventional pollution integrated gasification combined cycle technology has been surprisingly slow in gaining world-wide acceptance; perhaps the Kyoto Protocol will give it greater impetus. Finally, time is ripe for the emergence of a 'coal complex' which combines an electric power plant with a coal 'refinery'. The coal refining part will be devoted not only to the generation of cleaner-burning fuels but also to the production of high-value-added solid carbon materials (e. g., for adsorbents, catalysts, batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells) which not only greatly improve the economics of the over all enterprise, but help to solve some of the residual environmental problems of electricity generation by coal combustion.
• Keywords
  coal, combustion, environment, electricity, materials
• Coal in the 21st century: Electricity, clean environment and advanced materials
• Pages
  35 - 42
• UDC
  662.62:504.06
• BIBLID
  0350-218X, 32 (2006), 1-4, 35-42
• References
  • The most authoritative source is http://www.unfccc.int/resource/convkp.html (viewed 10/4/04)
  • See, for example, http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/factsheets/program/prog031.pdf
  • http://www.epri.com/destinations/product.aspx?id=146&solution=3&issue=9
  • http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/em/power/EA/mitigatn/pfbcsubs.stm
  • http://www.power-technology.com/projects/karita/
  • http://www.gasification.org/Docs/2002_Papers/GTC02013.pdf; http://www.gasification.org/Docs/2002_Papers/GTC02006.pdf; http://www.gasification.org/Docs/2003_Papers/19WOLT.pdf. See also http://europa.eu.int/comm/energytransport/atlas/htmlu/igccintro.html. For a detailed list of world wide gasification projects, see http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/coalpower/gasification/index.html
  • See, for example, http://www.gasification.org/Docs/2003_Papers/39IGNA.pdf
  • See, for example, http://www.iea-coal.co.uk/site/database/cct%20databases/igcc.htm.