In
industrial chemistry, coal gasification is the process of producing
syngas—a mixture consisting primarily of
carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a poisonous, flammable gas that is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the si ...
(CO),
hydrogen
Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...
(),
carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...
(),
methane
Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes ...
(), and water vapour ()—from
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
and
water
Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...
, air and/or oxygen.
Historically, coal was gasified to produce
coal gas
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...
, also known as "town gas". Coal gas is combustible and was used for heating and municipal lighting, before the advent of large-scale extraction of
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
from oil wells.
In current practice, large-scale coal gasification installations are primarily for
electricity generation
Electricity generation is the process of generating electric power from sources of primary energy. For electric utility, utilities in the electric power industry, it is the stage prior to its Electricity delivery, delivery (Electric power transm ...
(both in conventional thermal power stations and
molten carbonate fuel cell power stations), or for production of chemical feedstocks. The hydrogen obtained from coal
gasification can be used for
various purposes such as making
ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pu ...
, powering a
hydrogen economy, or upgrading
fossil fuels
A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologica ...
.
Alternatively, coal-derived syngas can be converted into transportation fuels such as
gasoline
Gasoline ( North American English) or petrol ( Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When for ...
and
diesel through
additional treatment, or into
methanol
Methanol (also called methyl alcohol and wood spirit, amongst other names) is an organic chemical compound and the simplest aliphatic Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with the chemical formula (a methyl group linked to a hydroxyl group, often ab ...
which itself can be used as transportation fuel or fuel additive, or which can be
converted into gasoline.
Natural gas from coal gasification can be cooled until it
liquifies for use as a fuel in the transport sector. Coal gasification may be phased out in order to get to
net zero greenhouse gas emissions.
History
In the past, coal was converted to make coal gas, which was piped to customers to burn for illumination, heating, and cooking. High prices of oil and natural gas led to increased interest in "BTU Conversion" technologies such as
gasification,
methanation and liquefaction. The
Synthetic Fuels Corporation was a U.S. government-funded corporation established in 1980 to create a market for alternatives to imported fossil fuels (such as coal gasification). The corporation was discontinued in 1985.
Early history of coal gas production by carbonization
The Flemish scientist
Jan Baptista van Helmont used the name "gas" in his ''Origins of Medicine'' () to describe his discovery of a "wild spirit" which escaped from heated wood and coal, and which "differed little from the
chaos of the ancients". Similar experiments were carried out in 1681 by
Johann Becker of
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
and in 1684 by
John Clayton of
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a town in Greater Manchester, England. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. It is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its ad ...
, England. The latter called it "Spirit of the Coal".
William Murdoch (later known as Murdock) discovered new ways of making, purifying and storing gas. Among others, he illuminated his house at
Redruth
Redruth ( , ) is a town and civil parishes in Cornwall, civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. According to the 2011 census, the population of Redruth was 14,018 In the same year the population of the Camborne-Redruth urban area, ...
and his cottage at
Soho, Birmingham in 1792, the entrance to the
Manchester Police Commissioners premises in 1797, the exterior of the factory of
Boulton and Watt in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
, and a large
cotton mill in
Salford
Salford ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Greater Manchester, England, on the western bank of the River Irwell which forms its boundary with Manchester city centre. Landmarks include the former Salford Town Hall, town hall, ...
, Lancashire in 1805.
[
]
Professor
Jan Pieter Minckeleers lit his lecture room at the
University of Louvain in 1783 and
Lord Dundonald lit his house at
Culross, Scotland, in 1787, the gas being carried in sealed vessels from the local tar works. In France,
Philippe le Bon patented a gas fire in 1799 and demonstrated street lighting in 1801. Other demonstrations followed in France and in the United States, but, it is generally recognized that the first commercial gas plant was built by the
London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company in Great Peter Street in 1812 laying wooden pipes to illuminate
Westminster Bridge with
gas lights on New Year's Eve in 1813. In 1816,
Rembrandt Peale and four others established the
Gas Light Company of Baltimore, the first manufactured gas company in America. The first German gas plant was built in Hannover in 1825 and by 1870 there were 340 gas plants in Germany making town gas from coal, wood, peat and other materials.
Working conditions in the
Gas Light and Coke Company's Horseferry Road Works, London, in the 1830s were described by a French visitor, Flora Tristan, in her ''Promenades Dans Londres'':
Two rows of furnaces on each side were fired up; the effect was not unlike the description of Vulcan's forge, except that the Cyclopes
In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; , ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's ''The ...
were animated with a divine spark, whereas the dusky servants of the English furnaces were joyless, silent and benumbed.... The foreman told me that stokers were selected from among the strongest, but that nevertheless they all became consumptive after seven or eight years of toil and died of pulmonary consumption. That explained the sadness and apathy in the faces and every movement of the hapless men.[Tristan, Flora (1840) ''Promenades Dans Londres''. Trans. Palmer, D, and Pincetl, G. (1980) ''Flora Tristan's London Journal, A Survey of London Life in the 1830s'' George Prior, Publishers, London. Extract ''Worse than the slave trade'' in Appendix 1, Barty-King, H (1985).]
The first public piped gas supply was to 13
gas lamps, each with three glass globes along the length of
Pall Mall, London in 1807. The credit for this goes to the inventor and entrepreneur
Fredrick Winsor and the plumber
Thomas Sugg, who made and laid the pipes. Digging up streets to lay pipes
required legislation and this delayed the development of street lighting and gas for domestic use. Meanwhile,
William Murdoch and his pupil
Samuel Clegg were installing gas lighting in factories and work places, encountering no such impediments.
Early history of coal gas production by gasification
In the 1850s every small to medium-sized town and city had a gas plant to provide for street lighting. Subscribing customers could also have piped lines to their houses. By this era, gas lighting became accepted. Gaslight trickled down to the middle class and later came gas cookers and stoves.
The 1860s were the golden age of coal gas development. Scientists like
Kekulé and
Perkin cracked the secrets of organic chemistry to reveal how gas is made and its composition. From this came better gas plants and Perkin's purple dyes, such as
Mauveine. In the 1850s, processes for making
Producer gas and
Water gas from coke were developed. Unenriched water gas may be described as Blue water gas (BWG).
Mond gas, developed in the 1850s by
Ludwig Mond, was producer gas made from coal instead of coke. It contained ammonia and coal tar and was processed to recover these valuable compounds.
Blue water gas (BWG) burns with a non-luminous flame which makes it unsuitable for lighting purposes. Carburetted Water Gas (CWG), developed in the 1860s, is BWG enriched with gases obtained by spraying oil into a hot retort. It has a higher
calorific value and burns with a luminous flame.
The carburetted water gas process was improved by
Thaddeus S. C. Lowe in 1875. The gas oil was fixed into the BWG via thermocracking in the carburettor and superheater of the CWG generating set. CWG was the dominant technology in the US from the 1880s until the 1950s, replacing coal gasification. CWG has a CV of 20 MJ/m
3 i.e. slightly more than half that of natural gas.
Development of the coal gas industry in the UK
The advent of
incandescent gas lighting in factories, homes and in the streets, replacing
oil lamps and
candles with steady clear light, almost matching
daylight
Daylight is the combination of all direct and indirect sunlight during the daytime. This includes direct sunlight, diffuse sky radiation, and (often) both of these reflected by Earth and terrestrial objects, like landforms and buildings. Sunlig ...
in its colour, turned night into day for many—making night
shift work possible in industries where light was all important—in
spinning,
weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal ...
and making up garments etc. The social significance of this change is difficult for generations brought up with lighting after dark available at the touch of a switch to appreciate. Not only was industrial production accelerated, but streets were made safe, social intercourse facilitated and reading and writing made more widespread. Gas plants were built in almost every town, main streets were brightly illuminated and gas was piped in the streets to the majority of urban households. The invention of the
gas meter and the
pre-payment meter in the late 1880s played an important role in selling town gas to domestic and commercial customers.
The education and training of the large workforce, the attempts to standardise manufacturing and commercial practices and the moderating of commercial rivalry between supply companies prompted the founding of associations of gas managers, first in
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
in 1861. A
British Association of Gas Managers was formed in 1863 in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
and this, after a turbulent history, became the foundation of the
Institute of Gas Engineers (IGE). In 1903, the reconstructed
Institution of Civil Engineers
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) is an independent professional association for civil engineers and a Charitable organization, charitable body in the United Kingdom. Based in London, ICE has over 92,000 members, of whom three-quarters ar ...
(ICE) initiated courses for students of gas manufacture in the
City and Guilds of London Institute. The IGE was granted the
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but ...
in 1929. Universities were slow to respond to the needs of the industry and it was not until 1908 that the first Professorship of Coal Gas and Fuel Industries was founded at the
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...
. In 1926, the
Gas Light and Coke Company opened ''Watson House'' adjacent to
Nine Elms Gas plants.
[Everard, Stirling (1949). ''The History of the Gas Light and Coke Company 1812-1949''. London: Ernest Benn Limited. (Reprinted 1992, London: A&C Black (Publishers) Limited for the London Gas Museum. ) Chapter XX, ''Sir David Milne-Watson, Bart.: I. Expansion.] At first, this was a
scientific laboratory. Later it included a centre for training
apprentices but its major contribution to the industry was its gas appliance testing facilities, which were made available to the whole industry, including gas appliance manufacturers.
[ Using this facility, the industry established not only safety but also performance standards for both the manufacture of gas appliances and their servicing in customers' homes and commercial premises.
During ]World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, the gas industry's by-products, phenol
Phenol (also known as carbolic acid, phenolic acid, or benzenol) is an aromatic organic compound with the molecular formula . It is a white crystalline solid that is volatile and can catch fire.
The molecule consists of a phenyl group () ...
, toluene
Toluene (), also known as toluol (), is a substituted aromatic hydrocarbon with the chemical formula , often abbreviated as , where Ph stands for the phenyl group. It is a colorless, water
Water is an inorganic compound with the c ...
and ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pu ...
and sulphurous compounds were valuable ingredients for explosives
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An exp ...
. Much coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
for the gas plants was shipped by sea and was vulnerable to enemy attack. The gas industry was a large employer of clerks, mainly male before the war. But the advent of the typewriter
A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an i ...
and the female typist made another important social change that was, unlike the employment of women in war-time industry, to have long-lasting effects.
The inter-war years were marked by the development of the continuous vertical retort which replaced many of the batch fed horizontal retorts. There were improvements in storage, especially the waterless gas holder, and distribution with the advent of 2–4inch steel pipes to convey gas at up to as feeder mains compared to the traditional cast iron pipes working at an average of 2–3inches water gauge (500–750 Pa). Benzole as a vehicle fuel and coal tar
Coal tar is a thick dark liquid which is a by-product of the production of coke and coal gas from coal. It is a type of creosote. It has both medical and industrial uses. Medicinally it is a topical medication applied to skin to treat psoria ...
as the main feedstock for the emerging organic chemical industry provided the gas industry with substantial revenues. Petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...
supplanted coal tar as the primary feedstock of the organic chemical industry after World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
and the loss of this market contributed to the economic problems of the gas industry after the war.
A wide variety of appliances and uses for gas developed over the years. Gas fires, gas cookers, refrigerators, washing machines, hand irons, pokers for lighting coal fires, gas-heated baths, remotely controlled clusters of gas lights, gas engines of various types and, in later years, gas warm air and hot water central heating
A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat.
A central heating system has a Furnace (central heating), furnace that converts fuel or electricity to heat through processes. The he ...
and air conditioning
Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...
, all of which made immense contributions to the improvement of the quality of life in cities and towns worldwide. The evolution of electric lighting made available from public supply extinguished the gas light, except where colour matching was practised as in haberdashery shops.
Process
During gasification, the coal is blown through with oxygen
Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...
and steam (water vapor) while also being heated (and in some cases pressurized). If the coal is heated by external heat sources the process is called "allothermal", while "autothermal" process assumes heating of the coal via exothermal chemical reactions occurring inside the gasifier itself. It is essential that the oxidizer supplied is insufficient for complete oxidizing (combustion) of the fuel. During the reactions mentioned, oxygen and water molecules oxidize the coal and produce a gaseous mixture of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalent bond, covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in a gas state at room temperature and at norma ...
(CO2), carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a poisonous, flammable gas that is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the si ...
(CO), water vapour (H2O), and molecular hydrogen
Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...
(H2). (Some by-products like tar, phenols, etc. are also possible end products, depending on the specific gasification technology utilized.) This process has been conducted in-situ within natural coal seams (referred to as underground coal gasification) and in coal refineries. The desired end product is usually syngas (i.e., a combination of H2 + CO), but the produced coal gas may also be further refined to produce additional quantities of H2:
: 3C (i.e., coal) + O2 + H2O → H2 + 3CO
If the refiner wants to produce alkanes (i.e., hydrocarbons present in natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
, gasoline
Gasoline ( North American English) or petrol ( Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish, and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When for ...
, and diesel fuel
Diesel fuel, also called diesel oil, heavy oil (historically) or simply diesel, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a re ...
), the coal gas is collected at this state and routed to a Fischer–Tropsch reactor. If, however, hydrogen is the desired end-product, the coal gas (primarily the CO product) undergoes the water gas shift reaction where more hydrogen is produced by additional reaction with water vapor:
: CO + H2O → CO2 + H2
Although other technologies for coal gasification currently exist, all employ, in general, the same chemical processes. For low-grade coals (i.e., lignite or other "brown coals") which contain significant amounts of water, there are technologies in which no steam is required during the reaction, with coal (carbon) and oxygen being the only reactants. As well, some coal gasification technologies do not require high pressures. Some utilize pulverized coal as fuel while others work with relatively large fractions of coal. Gasification technologies also vary in the way the blowing is supplied.
"Direct blowing" assumes the coal and the oxidizer being supplied towards each other from the opposite sides of the reactor channel. In this case the oxidizer passes through coke and (more likely) ashes to the reaction zone where it interacts with coal. The hot gas produced then passes fresh fuel and heats it while absorbing some products of thermal destruction of the fuel, such as tars and phenols. Thus, the gas requires significant refining before being used in the Fischer–Tropsch reaction. Products of the refinement are highly toxic and require special facilities for their utilization. As a result, the plant utilizing the described technologies has to be very large to be economically efficient. One of such plants called SASOL is situated in the South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
. It was built due to embargo applied to the country preventing it from importing oil and natural gas. South Africa is rich in bituminous coal
Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the coal seam, ...
and anthracite and was able to arrange the use of the well known high pressure "Lurgi" gasification process developed in Germany in the first half of 20th century.
"Reversed blowing" (as compared to the previous type described which was invented first) assumes the coal and the oxidizer being supplied from the same side of the reactor. In this case there is no chemical interaction between coal and oxidizer before the reaction zone. The gas produced in the reaction zone passes solid products of gasification (coke and ashes), and CO2 and H2O contained in the gas are additionally chemically restored to CO and H2. As compared to the "direct blowing" technology, no toxic by-products are present in the gas: those are disabled in the reaction zone. This type of gasification has been developed in the first half of 20th century, along with the "direct blowing", but the rate of gas production in it is significantly lower than that in "direct blowing" and there were no further efforts of developing the "reversed blowing" processes until 1980-s when a Soviet research facility KATEKNIIUgol' (R&D Institute for developing Kansk-Achinsk coal field) began R&D activities to produce the technology now known as "TERMOKOKS-S" process. The reason for reviving the interest in this type of gasification process is that it is ecologically clean and able to produce two types of useful products (simultaneously or separately): gas (either combustible or syngas) and middle-temperature coke. The former may be used as a fuel for gas boilers and diesel-generators or as syngas for producing gasoline, etc., the latter - as a technological fuel in metallurgy, as a chemical absorbent or as raw material for household fuel briquettes. Combustion of the product gas in gas boilers is ecologically cleaner than combustion of initial coal. Thus, a plant utilizing gasification technology with the "reversed blowing" is able to produce two valuable products of which one has relatively zero production cost since the latter is covered by competitive market price of the other. As the Soviet Union and its KATEKNIIUgol' ceased to exist, the technology was adopted by the individual scientists who originally developed it and is now being further researched in Russia and commercially distributed worldwide. Industrial plants utilizing it are now known to function in Ulaan-Baatar (Mongolia) and Krasnoyarsk (Russia).
Pressurized airflow bed gasification technology created through the joint development between Wison Group and Shell (Hybrid). For example: Hybrid is an advanced pulverized coal gasification technology, this technology combined with the existing advantages of Shell SCGP waste heat boiler, includes more than just a conveying system, pulverized coal pressurized gasification burner arrangement, lateral jet burner membrane type water wall, and the intermittent discharge has been fully validated in the existing SCGP plant such as mature and reliable technology, at the same time, it removed the existing process complications and in the syngas cooler (waste pan) and ly ashfilters which easily failed, and combined the current existing gasification technology that is widely used in synthetic gas quench process. It not only retains the original Shell SCGP waste heat boiler of coal characteristics of strong adaptability, and ability to scale up easily, but also absorb the advantages of the existing quench technology.
Underground coal gasification
Underground coal gasification (UCG) is an industrial gasification process, which is carried out in non-mined coal seams. It involves injection of a gaseous oxidizing agent, usually oxygen or air, and bringing the resulting product gas to the surface through production wells drilled from the surface. The product gas can be used as a chemical
A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...
feedstock or as fuel
A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work (physics), work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chem ...
for power generation. The technique can be applied to resources that are otherwise not economical to extract. It also offers an alternative to conventional coal mining
Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...
methods. Compared to traditional coal mining and gasification, UCG has less environmental and social impact, though environmental concerns exist, including the potential for aquifer contamination.
Carbon capture technology
Carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (or storage) is increasingly being utilized in modern coal gasification projects to address the greenhouse gas emissions concern associated with the use of coal and carbonaceous fuels. In this respect, gasification has a significant advantage over conventional combustion of mined coal, in which CO2 resulting from combustion is considerably diluted by nitrogen and residual oxygen in the near-ambient pressure combustion exhaust, making it relatively difficult, energy-intensive, and expensive to capture the CO2 (this is known as "post-combustion" CO2 capture).
In gasification, on the other hand, oxygen is normally supplied to the gasifiers and just enough fuel is combusted to provide the heat to gasify the rest; moreover, gasification is often performed at elevated pressure. The resulting syngas is typically at higher pressure and not diluted by nitrogen, allowing for much easier, efficient, and less costly removal of CO2. A 2025 review found that pre-combustion CO₂ capture in IGCC systems can achieve over 90% efficiency, offering strong potential for decarbonizing coal utilization.
IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) based projects in the United States with CO2 capture and use/storage
Mississippi Power's Kemper Project was designed as a lignite-fuel IGCC plant, generating a net 524 MW of power from syngas, while capturing over 65% of CO2 generated using the Selexol process. The technology at the Kemper facility, Transport-Integrated Gasification (TRIG), was developed and is licensed by KBR. The CO2 will be sent by pipeline to depleted oil fields in Mississippi for enhanced oil recovery operations. The plant missed all its targets and plans for "clean coal" generation were abandoned in July 2017. The plant is expected to go ahead burning natural gas only.
Hydrogen Energy California (HECA) will be a 300MW net, coal and petroleum coke-fueled IGCC polygeneration plant (producing hydrogen for both power generation and fertilizer manufacture). Ninety percent of the CO2 produced will be captured (using Rectisol) and transported to Elk Hills Oil Field for EOR, enabling recovery of 5 million additional barrels of domestic oil per year. On March 4, 2016, the California Energy Commission ordered the HECA application to be terminated.
Summit's Texas Clean Energy Project (TCEP) will be a coal-fueled, IGCC-based 400MW power/polygeneration project (also producing urea fertilizer), which will capture 90% of its CO2 in pre-combustion using the Rectisol process. The CO2 not used in fertilizer manufacture will be used for enhanced oil recovery in the West Texas Permian Basin.
Plants such as the Texas Clean Energy Project which employ carbon capture and storage have been touted as a partial, or interim, solution to regulation issues if they can be made economically viable by improved design and mass production. There has been opposition from utility regulators and ratepayers due to increased cost; and from environmentalists such as Bill McKibben, who view any continued use of fossil fuels as counterproductive.
Commercialization
According to the Gasification and Syngas Technologies Council, a trade association, there are globally 272 operating gasification plants with 686 gasifiers and 74 plants with 238 gasifiers under construction. Most of them use coal as feedstock.[
]
As of 2017 large scale expansion of the coal gasification industry was occurring only in China where local governments and energy companies promote the industry to provide jobs and a market for coal. For the most part, the plants are located in remote, coal-rich areas.
The central government is aware of the conflicts with environmental goals: in addition to producing a great deal of carbon dioxide, the plants use a great deal of water in areas where water is scarce.
A pilot project for low grade coal (lignite) was undertaken at Thar Coal Mines (Pakistan) using their waste coal seams which were below the specification limits of the mine-mouth power plant (off-spec coal). Pilot plant was based on updraft gasification technology and utilized different blends of municipal solid waste with lignite off-spec coal to improve gasification efficiency and hydrogen production.
Environmental impact
Environmental impact of manufactured coal gas industry
From its original development until the wide-scale adoption of natural gas, more than 50,000 manufactured gas plants were in existence in the United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
alone. The process of manufacturing gas usually produced a number of by-products that contaminated the soil
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by re ...
and groundwater
Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...
in and around the manufacturing plant, so many former town gas plants are a serious environmental concern, and cleanup and remediation costs are often high. Manufactured gas plants (MGPs) were typically sited near or adjacent to waterways that were used to transport in coal and for the discharge of wastewater contaminated with tar, ammonia and/or drip oils, as well as outright waste tars and tar-water emulsions.
In the earliest days of MGP operations, coal tar was considered a waste and often disposed into the environment in and around the plant locations. While uses for coal tar developed by the late-19th century, the market for tar varied and plants that could not sell tar at a given time could store tar for future use, attempt to burn it as boiler fuel, or dump the tar as waste. Commonly, waste tars were disposed of in old gas holders, adits or even mine shafts (if present). Over time, the waste tars degrade with phenols
In organic chemistry, phenols, sometimes called phenolics, are a class of chemical compounds consisting of one or more hydroxyl groups (− O H) bonded directly to an aromatic hydrocarbon group. The simplest is phenol, . Phenolic compounds ar ...
, benzene
Benzene is an Organic compound, organic chemical compound with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecular formula C6H6. The benzene molecule is composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar hexagonal Ring (chemistry), ring with one hyd ...
(and other mono-aromatics— BTEX) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons released as pollutant plumes that can escape into the surrounding environment. Other wastes included " blue billy", which is a ferroferricyanide compound—the blue colour is from Prussian blue, which was commercially used as a dye. Blue billy is typically a granular material and was sometimes sold locally with the strap line "guaranteed weed free drives". The presence of blue billy can give gas plant waste a characteristic musty/ bitter almonds or marzipan smell which is associated with cyanide gas.
The shift to the Carburetted Water Gas process initially resulted in a reduced output of water gas tar as compared to the volume of coal tars. The advent of automobiles reduced the availability of naphtha for carburetion oil, as that fraction was desirable as motor fuel. MGPs that shifted to heavier grades of oil often experienced problems with the production of tar-water emulsions, which were difficult, time-consuming, and costly to break. (The cause of tar change water emulsions is complex and was related to several factors, including free carbon in the carburetion oil and the substitution of bituminous coal as a feedstock instead of coke.) The production of large volumes of tar-water emulsions quickly filled up available storage capacity at MGPs and plant management often dumped the emulsions in pits, from which they may or may not have been later reclaimed. Even if the emulsions were reclaimed, the environmental damage from placing tars in unlined pits remained. The dumping of emulsions (and other tarry residues such as tar sludges, tank bottoms, and off-spec tars) into the soil and waters around MGPs is a significant factor in the pollution found at former manufactured gas plants (known as "FMGPs" in environmental remediation
Environmental remediation is the cleanup of hazardous substances dealing with the removal, treatment and containment of pollution or contaminants from Natural environment, environmental media such as soil, groundwater, sediment. Remediation may be ...
) today.
Contaminants commonly associated with FMGPs include:
* BTEX
** Diffused out from deposits of coal/gas tars
** Leaks of carburetting oil/light oil
** Leaks from drip pots, that collected condensible hydrocarbons from the gas
*Coal tar
Coal tar is a thick dark liquid which is a by-product of the production of coke and coal gas from coal. It is a type of creosote. It has both medical and industrial uses. Medicinally it is a topical medication applied to skin to treat psoria ...
waste/sludge
**Typically found in sumps of gas holders and decanting ponds.
** Coal tar sludge has no resale value and so was always dumped.
* Volatile organic compound
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic compounds that have a high vapor pressure at room temperature. They are common and exist in a variety of settings and products, not limited to Indoor mold, house mold, Upholstery, upholstered furnitur ...
s
* Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
** Present in coal tar, gas tar, and pitch at significant concentrations.
* Heavy metals
** Leaded solder for gas mains, lead piping, coal ashes.
* Cyanide
** Purifier waste has large amounts of complex ferrocyanides in it.
* Lampblack
** Only found where crude oil was used as gasification feedstock.
* Tar emulsions
Coal tar and coal tar sludges are frequently denser than water and are present in the environment as a dense non-aqueous phase liquid
A dense non-aqueous phase liquid or DNAPL is a denser-than-water NAPL, i.e. a liquid that is both denser than water and is immiscible in or does not dissolve in water.
* in situ surfactant flushing
* air sparging
* heating
Most DNAPLs remain ...
.
In the UK, a number of former gasworks sites have been redeveloped for residential and other uses (including the Millennium Dome), being seen as prime developable land within the confines of city boundaries. Such development opportunities are now leading to problems associated with planning and the Contaminated Land Regime and have recently been debated in the House of Commons.
Environmental impact of modern coal gasification
Coal gasification processes require controls and pollution prevention measures to mitigate pollutant emissions.[Beychok, M.R., ''Process and environmentals technology for producing SNG and liquid fuels'', U.S, EPA report EPA-660/2-2-75-011, May 1975][Beychok, M.R., ''Coal gasification and the phenolsolvan process'', American Chemical Society 168th National Meeting, Atlantic City, September 1974] Pollutants or emissions of concern in the context of coal gasification include primarily:
*Ash & slag
Non-slagging gasifiers produce dry ash similar to that produced by conventional coal combustion, which can be an environmental liability if the ash (typically containing heavy metals) is leachable or caustic, and if the ash must be stored in ash ponds. Slagging gasifiers, which are utilized at many of the major coal gasification applications worldwide, have considerable advantage in that ash components are fused into a glassy slag, capturing trace heavy metals in the non-leachable glassy matrix, rendering the material non-toxic. This non-hazardous slag has multiple beneficial uses such as aggregate in concrete, aggregate in asphalt for road construction, grit in abrasive blasting, roofing granules, etc.[Chris Higman and Maarten van der Burgt. Gasification, Second Edition, Elsevier (2008).]
*Carbon dioxide (CO2)
CO2 is of paramount importance in global climate change.
*Mercury
*Arsenic
*Particulate matter (PM)
Ash is formed in gasification from inorganic impurities in the coal. Some of these impurities react to form microscopic solids which can be suspended in the syngas produced by gasification.
*Sulfur dioxide
Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless gas with a pungent smell that is responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is r ...
(SO2)
Typically coal contains anywhere from 0.2 to 5 percent sulfur by dry weight, which converts to H2S and COS in the gasifiers due to the high temperatures and low oxygen levels. These "acid gases" are removed from the syngas produced by the gasifiers by acid gas removal equipment prior to the syngas being burned in the gas turbine to produce electricity, or prior to its use in fuels synthesis.
*Nitrogen oxides (NOx)
(NOx) refers to nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Coal usually contains between 0.5 and 3 percent nitrogen on a dry weight basis, most of which converts to harmless nitrogen gas. Small levels of ammonia and hydrogen cyanide are produced, and must be removed during the syngas cooling process. In the case of power generation, NOx also can be formed downstream by the combustion of syngas in turbines.
See also
* Edwardsport Power Station
* Fischer–Tropsch process
* Georgetown Coal Gasification Plant
* History of manufactured gas
* Kemper Project
* Sasol
* Secunda CTL
References
External links
Gasifipedia, a comprehensive online collection of resources to promote better understanding of gasification technology (with an emphasis on coal gasification), developed and maintained by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL)
The Gasification Systems Program, of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL)
"Practical Experience Gained During the First Twenty Years of Operation of the Great Plains Gasification Plant and Implications for Future Projects"
(PDF-3.1MB), DOE's Office of Fossil Energy, May 2006.
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Coal gasification technologies
Industrial gases