#13 Carbon-negative fuels in the spotlight as Ohio State, Argonne National Labs, Energy Vision make material progress
The biggest news along that front represents early-stage technology, but we read here that engineers at Ohio State announced that they’ve devised a process that under certain circumstances can convert coal, shale gas and biomass into electricity or syngas, while consuming carbon dioxide at the same time. In some cases, the technology not only consumes the full amount of carbon dioxide it produces, but also additional carbon dioxide from outside sources – and that’s the carbon negative moment.
Even more interestingly, the techno-economics (at a very early stage) indicated to the Ohio State team that they could lower the capital costs in producing syngas by about 50 percent compared to the technology traditionally used for this process.
It’s called ”Chemical Looping”: using tiny metal oxide particles to transport oxygen into high-pressure reactors. As these particles cycle through the system, they burn fossil fuels and biomass without the presence of oxygen in the air, causing a chemical reaction that doesn’t emit carbon dioxide.
In 2013, the team demonstrated the potential of this technology, but the final challenge was to keep the particles from wearing out. Since then, increased the lifespan of the metal oxide has jumped from 100 cycles to more than 3,000 cycles, extending plant operation from eight days to eight months and ensuring the technology is significantly more economical for commercialization.
https://staging.biofuelsdigest.com/2018/02/20/carbon-negative-fuels-in-the-spotlight-as-ohio-state-argonne-national-labs-energy-vision-make-material-progress/
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