skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Long-Term Demonstration of Hydrogen Production from Coal at Elevated Temperatures Year 6 - Activity 1.12 - Development of a National Center for Hydrogen Technology

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1084741· OSTI ID:1084741

The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) has continued the work of the National Center for Hydrogen Technology® (NCHT®) Program Year 6 Task 1.12 project to expose hydrogen separation membranes to coal-derived syngas. In this follow-on project, the EERC has exposed two membranes to coal-derived syngas produced in the pilot-scale transport reactor development unit (TRDU). Western Research Institute (WRI), with funding from the State of Wyoming Clean Coal Technology Program and the North Dakota Industrial Commission, contracted with the EERC to conduct testing of WRI’s coal-upgrading/gasification technology for subbituminous and lignite coals in the EERC’s TRDU. This gasifier fires nominally 200–500 lb/hour of fuel and is the pilot-scale version of the full-scale gasifier currently being constructed in Kemper County, Mississippi. A slipstream of the syngas was used to demonstrate warm-gas cleanup and hydrogen separation using membrane technology. Two membranes were exposed to coal-derived syngas, and the impact of coal-derived impurities was evaluated. This report summarizes the performance of WRI’s patent-pending coalupgrading/ gasification technology in the EERC’s TRDU and presents the results of the warm-gas cleanup and hydrogen separation tests. Overall, the WRI coal-upgrading/gasification technology was shown to produce a syngas significantly lower in CO2 content and significantly higher in CO content than syngas produced from the raw fuels. Warm-gas cleanup technologies were shown to be capable of reducing sulfur in the syngas to 1 ppm. Each of the membranes tested was able to produce at least 2 lb/day of hydrogen from coal-derived syngas.

Research Organization:
Univ. of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
FE0003466
OSTI ID:
1084741
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English