Clean Coal

An article from the Environmental News Network announces that clean coal may now be a reality. The main method for acquiring energy from coal is combustion, and this creates a lot of pollutants that aren't easily contained and are very harmful to our environment. But a group of researchers at Ohio State University believe they may have developed a new way to get energy from clean coal. They have spent two years on this project and they were finally successful in creating clean coal energy chemically without combustion with the air and it has the ability to capture nearly 99% of the carbon dioxide produced from the reaction.

The process is called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping or CDCL, it combines iron oxide beads to carry oxygen to create the chemical reaction with coal. It is turned into a powder where it is then heated to high temperatures so the materials can react with each other. This method has several benefits because the carbon dioxide formed from the reaction rises to the top of the chamber where it is captured instead of being released into the air, and the water vapor formed from excess heat is used to power turbines to generate electricity. Furthermore they separate the carbon dioxide created so it can be recycled and the iron beads are re-oxidized allowing them to be re-generated.

This process meets all the necessary requirements set by the Department of Energy and is anticipated to continue to do so. Ohio State University is also planning for the pilot plant that will be located in Alabama at the US Department of Energy's National Carbon Capture Center to begin operating in late 2013. It seems to be a more efficient way to develop energy from coal and any method that could potentially lower the impact that coal pollution has on the environment is something to commend. This new study and other clean coal energy experiments are making people wonder if this could be the future of coal and hoping that this could really be a new revolutionary way to create energy from clean coal. Here is a link to the original article for more information, http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/45613.