Clean coal research in running for European energy award
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30 January 2009
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Australian research into new and unique technology to turn low-rank coals into a much-improved and far more environmentally-friendly fuel for power generation and catalytic coal gasification has been invited to participate in a major European energy prize.
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Developed and owned by Clean Coal Technology Pty Ltd, the project has had its research base at La Trobe University in Melbourne for the past decade. Led by Dr George Domazetis, the company's Managing Director, it is being considered for the 'New Frontiers of Hydrocarbons' prize, the top-category in the Italian-based Eni Awards.
Dr Domazetis, a La Trobe PhD graduate and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry, said Eni's Scientific Commission has announced that the Australian project will be included in its final deliberations on the winners at the end of January.
Low-rank coals (brown coal, lignite and sub-bituminous coal) constitute about half of the world's coal resources and are the cheapest to mine, says Dr Domazetis.
Using state-of-the-art research in the chemical and physical sciences, the project has involved extensive studies into the properties and quality of low-rank coals and a range of processing problems as part of an overall 'coherent' research strategy into cleaner energy.
Dr Domazetis says the result is a technology that can improve coal-fired power generation efficiency to 40-50 per cent (from the present 30 percent) and thermal efficiency up to 90 per cent while cutting greenhouse emissions. It removes ash that fouls power station boilers and, using catalysts, can produce hydrogen by steam gasification.
About a dozen La Trobe scientists and postgraduate students have worked on the project during the last decade, including members of the University's Centre for Materials and Surface Science and Environmental Geoscience.
Dr Domazetis brought the project to La Trobe ten years ago because, he says, the University 'had the right fit of expertise and instrumentation.' Since then, it has grown from dealing with brown coal to all low-rank coals in the world. Dr Domazetis has also carried out leading-edge quantum mechanics molecular coal modelling studies on catalytic gasification, supported by both the Victorian and Australian partnerships for advanced computing (APAC and VPAC).
"There are close to 500 entries in this year's awards," Dr Domazetis said.
"Win or not, we are very confident about the quality of our work and excited that it has got so far."
Eni is a multi-national energy corporation based in Italy. Its awards encourage better use of energy resources, promote environmental studies and reward new researchers. Last year's awards were presented at the Accademia dei Lincei, with the President of Italy as patron. The winners were from the USA and Germany.
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