Release Date: September 19, 2002

WASHINGTON, DC - Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today announced the 25 winning projects in the Department of Energy's University Coal Research Program, the agency's longest-running student-teacher research grant program.

With more than $3 million in grants from the Energy Department, teams of university professors and their students will explore a variety of innovative concepts that could lead to the cleaner use of America's abundant coal reserves.

"The University Coal Research Program continues year-after-year to provide one of our most fertile sources of creative concepts for the cleaner and more efficient use of coal," Secretary Abraham said. "With the President's National Energy Policy emphasizing the need to focus our brightest minds on tomorrow's energy challenges, this program not only produces outstanding research, it also gives hundreds of students a hands-on introduction to advanced energy technology."

This year, for example, one winning team will study a new type of membrane that separates clean-burning hydrogen from gases made from coal. Another will build a lab-scale model of an advanced desalination plant that one day might provide cooling water to electric power plants and reduce the growing competition in some regions for fresh water. Yet another will explore a new way to manufacture fuel cells that could dramatically lower their costs.

In all, nine projects will receive grants of up to $200,000 each for "core" research that directly supports ongoing efforts in the department's Fossil Energy program. Another 14 projects will receive $50,000 grants each to explore even longer-range innovative concepts. Two universities that had previously received innovative concept grants will be awarded $200,000 each to continue developing their concepts. Several universities will contribute additional funding for their projects, adding a total of $326,000 to the federal grants.

This is the 23rd year that the Energy Department has conducted the University Coal Research competition. Since the program began, nearly 1500 students have worked alongside their professors in more than 600 federally-funded research projects valued in excess of $100 million.

Past student-professor research has led to several new concepts that are now in commercial practice, ranging from new ways to wash impurities from coal to the more efficient use of carbon inks in office copiers. More detail on the following winning projects can be found by clicking on each university name.

Core Program

• Boston University, Boston, MA, will study a manufacturing technique the university developed that could be used to fabricate future fuel cells from low-cost materials. Total value of project: $199,866; DOE share: $199,866.

• Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, will apply quantum chemistry calculations to better understand the way deposits of carbon and sulfur degrade the effectiveness of nickel catalysts that are used to make liquid hydrocarbon fuels or hydrogen from fossil fuels. Total value of project: $197,779; DOE share: $197,779.

• The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, will develop an "intelligent" fiber-optic sensor that monitors temperatures in power plant boilers. Total value of project: $294,350; DOE share: $200,000.

• Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, (2 projects)

  • In one project, the professor-student research team will devise a computer model that can help predict the chemical processes that occur when coal gas is converted in clean liquid fuels. Total value of project: $200,000; DOE share: $200,000.

  • In the second, a research team will develop a new generation of optical sensors that can measure more precisely a power plant's nitric oxide emissions, a pollutant now being regulated more stringently. Total value of project: $199,284; DOE share: $199,284.

• University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, will prepare a new type of membrane that can separate clean-burning hydrogen from gases made from coal. Total value of project: $200,000; DOE share: $200,000.

• University of Dayton, Dayton, OH, will develop the film-like materials used in advanced power plant sensors with a goal of increasing their durability to the high temperatures and harsh environments found in coal-fired power plants. Total value of project: $199,929; DOE share: $199,929.

• University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, (2 projects)

  • In one project, the research team will build and test a lab-scale diffusion-driven desalination plant that could replace the cooling towers of fossil-fueled power plants and enable the plants to produce fresh water as a marketable byproduct. Total value of project: $198,539; DOE share: $198,539.

  • In a second project, university professors and students will modify a solid-state oxygen sensor that the university had developed previously to measure concentrations of various types of pollutants emitted by power plants, including smog-causing nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. Total value of project: $250,962; DOE share: $200,000.

Innovative Concepts - Phase I (new projects):

• Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, will study a novel process that uses a power plant's waste heat and mechanical milling to enhance the capability of certain minerals to trap carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. Total value of project: $71,896; DOE share: $49,950.

• Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, will develop an ultrasensitive device that can detect and measure carbon dioxide concentrations in high-temperature processes with much greater sensitivity than instruments available today. Total value of project: $50,000; DOE share: $50,000.

• Iowa State University, Ames, IA, will combine chemical catalysts and sorbents into solid pellets that could be used to make hydrogen from coal and separate carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas). Total value of project: $66,006; DOE share: $50,000.

• The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, will apply the science behind microwave ovens to speed the rate at which certain minerals absorb carbon dioxide from power plant exhausts. Total value of project: $50,000; DOE share: $50,000.

• University of Albany, Albany, NY, will design and test chemical sensors that can be used inside a solid oxide fuel cell to detect hydrogen, methane, and other gases. Total value of project: $62,108; DOE share: $49,938.

• University of Maine, Orono, ME, will enhance a membrane that has the capability to remove carbon dioxide from the flue gases released by coal-burning power plants. Total value of project: $49,951; DOE share: $49,951.

• University of Mississippi, University, MS, will study a way to reduce nitrogen oxide pollutants from fossil fuel combustors by "reburning" natural gas with lignite or lignite char in a way that breaks downs the pollutants. Total value of project: $80,649; DOE share: $49,999.

• University of Nevada, Reno, NV, will develop an advanced heat exchanger for power plants using nanoscale molecular synthetic chemistry to obtain the most effective surface properties. Total value of project: $49,984; DOE share: $49,984.

• University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, (2 projects):

  • One project will study the effectiveness of reducing mercury pollutants from coal-fired plants by coating filters with catalysts that transform certain forms of mercury that are difficult to capture into a form that can be more easily filtered from power plant exhaust gases. Total value of project: $49,942; DOE share: $49,942.

  • The second project will test a fuel made of pulverized lignite and hog manure. Hog manure has the same heating value as western subbituminous coal, but when burned, produces fewer nitrogen oxide emissions. Total value of project: $50,000; DOE share: $50,000.

• University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, (2 projects):

  • In one project, the research team will develop a new technique for combining different types of fuels - coal, biomass, char, etc. - into "engineered particles" that could be more easily handled and fired more consistently in combustion systems than solid fuel mixtures produced by typical means. Total value of project: $50,000; DOE share: $50,000.

  • In the other project, researchers will adapt a chilling system that uses ice to cool intake air for combined cycle gas turbines, then makes ice during off-peak periods. The process could boost overall energy efficiencies of a power plant. Total value of project: $50,000; DOE share: $50,000.

• University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, (2 projects):

  • In one project, university researchers plan to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from coal combustors by enhancing the effectiveness of "reburning" coal char. Total value of project: $50,000; DOE share: $50,000.

  • In the second project, researchers will investigate certain types of minerals that under the right conditions can react with carbon dioxide and convert the greenhouse gas into an environmentally benign solid carbonate. Total value of project: $49,992; DOE share: $49,992.

Innovative Concepts - Phase II (continuation of previously funded projects):

• Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, will generate a 3-dimensional molecular model of bituminous coal that could reveal ways to enhance the capture of carbon dioxide released when the coal burns. Total value of project: $200,000; DOE share: $200,000.

• University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, will continue to study metal-carbonate membranes that can separate carbon dioxide from power plant flue gases. Total value of project: $199,377; DOE share: $199,377.