NETL Wins Two 2008 R&D 100 Awards

	NETL researchers and collaborators from Iowa State University conduct a virtual power plant simulation using NETL's Advanced Process Engineering Co-Simulator (APECS). APECS, built on the integrated access, workflow, and data services of the ANSYS® Engineering Knowledge Manager™, was named a winner of a 2008 R&D 100 Award.
	Evan Granite, left, and Henry Pennline are inventors of the palladium-based high temperature sorbents that have been named a winner of a 2008 R&D 100 Award.

Researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have won two 2008 R&D 100 Awards given each year by R&D Magazine  to the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace over the past year.

One of the NETL R&D 100 awards is for development of palladium-based high temperature sorbents to capture mercury, arsenic and selenium. The other is for NETL’s Advanced Process Engineering Co-Simulator (APECS) built on the integrated access, workflow, and data services of the ANSYS® Engineering Knowledge Manager™.

DOE regards the R&D 100 Awards as an important indicator of the real-world relevance of technologies developed at the national laboratories.

The palladium-based formulations have been licensed to Johnson Matthey for commercial development and application to capture mercury, arsenic, and selenium at various stages in the integrated gasification-combined cycle (IGCC) process. 

Compared to low temperature capture by activated carbons, capturing these trace elements at high temperature would retain the high thermal efficiency of IGCC plants, which form part of a strategy to increase the utilization of abundant domestic coal reserves.

The NETL sorbents are described in U.S. patent 7,033,419 as well as in recent issues of the journals Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research and Fuel. Johnson Matthey is a world leader in catalyst manufacture.

APECS with EKMTM is a one-of-a-kind software tool that provides high-fidelity process/equipment co-simulation together with seamless data/model management throughout the plant lifecycle, including process innovation, design, operations, and management across the distributed enterprise. 

The process and energy industries can deploy APECS with EKM as a complete engineering solution for fostering rapid technology development, reducing pilot/demonstration-scale facility design time and operating campaigns, and lowering the cost and technical risk in realizing high-efficiency, near-zero emission plants of the future.

Technologies chosen for R&D 100 Awards are voted by an independent judging panel and the editors of R&D. The awards will be presented on October 16 at the R&D 100 Awards banquet in Chicago.

NETL Completes Helicopter Electromagnetic Surveys in Powder River Basin

	During recent helicopter electromagnetic surveys in Wyoming, ground conductivity was measured by the sensor suspended from the helicopter. Survey data will be used in mapping soil and geologic properties for environmental studies important to managing produced water from coal bed natural gas production.

FUGRO Airborne Surveys, Inc., which conducts airborne surveys under contract to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), completed a helicopter electromagnet survey over two study areas in the Powder River Basin in June.

NETL is using airborne and ground-based geophysical methods to develop improved strategies for managing coalbed-natural gas (CBNG) produced water.

The survey received quality assurance/ quality control oversight by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) through a cooperative agreement between NETL and USGS.  Project partners include the Wyoming Department of Water Quality, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., BeneTerra LLC, and West Virginia University Natural Resource Analysis Center.

The survey included a proposed subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) site that will receive CBNG produced water, and the flood plain of Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Powder River that is being considered for CBNG produced water discharges under provision of Wyoming’s Agricultural Use Protection Policy.

Information from the survey will be used to design the SDI system so that areas of low permeability, salt lenses, and high total dissolved solids groundwater are avoided.  Survey data also will be used to determine the suitability of sub-irrigated land on the Beaver Creek flood plain for CBNG discharges. Both projects have the potential to increase CBNG production by providing beneficial and environmentally benign uses for produced water. 

Collaborators Achieve Electrochemical Separation Proof-of-Concept

Researchers from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have assembled and operated a low temperature electrochemical cell, and the results from the proof-of-concept testing are encouraging.

The researchers are collaborating through the University Research Initiative.

High temperature molten carbonate electrochemical cells separate carbon dioxide (CO₂) from flue gas streams produced by pulverized coal combustion for power generation. The presence of trace contaminants will impact the electrolyte within the cell.

A lower temperature cell could utilize the benefits of commercially-available, upstream desulfurization and denitrification in the power plant to enable the CO₂ separation technique to approach more viability in the carbon sequestration arena.

Based on the results from the proof-of-concept electrochemical cell testing, further optimization of the cell with respect to material and energy requirements is warranted.

In the proof-of-concept testing by NETL and CMU researchers, an anion exchange membrane was sandwiched between gas diffusion electrodes consisting of nickel-based electrocatalyst on carbon paper.

When a potential was applied across the cell and a mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide was flowed over the wetted electrolyte on the cathode side, a stream of CO₂ to O₂ of about 4:1 was produced on the anode side, suggesting that bicarbonate ions are the CO₂ carrier in the membrane.  Although a mixture of CO₂ and O₂ is produced, the possibility exists to use this stream in oxy-firing of additional fuel. 

NETL Computer Code for Geologic Sequestration Modified for Parallel Computers

Researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) have modified the computer code NETfLow™ to run on parallel computers, which enable faster computational speeds.

NETL researchers wrote the code, which they use to improve geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide, oil recovery, and other technologies of underground fluid flow.

NETfLow™ is being used to develop new equations for immiscible flow – flow where the fluids are incapable of mixing – through porous media and fracture networks. Immiscible flows occur in such technologies as brinefield sequestration, in which one fluid (e.g., carbon dioxide) displaces another (e.g., brine).

The parallelization involves a rewriting of a previously validated physical model for flow through networks of flow channels.  The parallelized code solves the same physical equations as in the previous computer program, but runs much faster, by using computers with parallel processors.

The faster computational speeds allow results to be obtained more quickly, or for larger problems to be studied.  For example, on a computer with four processors, the parallelized code runs almost three times as fast as the unparallelized version.