Chemical Engineering November 2010 - 12

ChementatoR
Reactor
LRC
Coal slurry fuel
I
(sub-bituminous
coal, lignite)
Gas
n order to shift the country's energy base
from petroleum, the Indonesian government
has implemented a policy aimed at
shifting to coal. Because low-rank coal
(LRC) accounts for about 80% of the nation's
coal resources, effective utilization of these
reserves will be vital to its energy security. A
step in this direction is being taken by JGC
Corp. (Yokohama, Japan; www.jgc.co.jp),
which is to construct a demonstration plant
for upgrading low-rank coal into fuel.
The project, a collaboration between JGC
and Indonesia's Sinarmas Group (Jakarta),
will employ a process that uses heat to upgrade
low-rank coal into a fuel tradenamed
JCF (JGC Coal Fuel). In the process (flowsheet),
high-pressure water is used to cause
low-rank coal to mature artificially. This matured
coal is then converted into slurry. JCF
can be used in place of petroleum products
to power boilers for industrial or energy generation
purposes. It also has potential appliseparator
Crusher
Pulverizer
Dehydrator
Mixer
High
LRC
slurry
pressure
pump
Heating
medium
oil
Valve
cations for power-generation engines, coal
gasification or as a component in biomasscombustion
plants.
JGC has started construction on the demonstration
plant at Karawang, near Jakarta,
in cooperation with Sinarmas Group. When
the facility is completed in 2011, it will have
a capacity to produce 10,000 ton/yr of JCF.
Carbon nanotube 'paper' could reduce Pt content in fuel cells
O
Filtrate
Coal slurry
ne of the biggest factors hindering widespread
adoption of polymer exchange
membrane fuel-cells (PEMFCs) is the high
price of the platinum metal needed to catalyze
the reduction-oxidation chemistry in the
fuel cell. In a step toward reducing platinum
content, a Florida State University (FSU;
Tallahassee, Fla.; www.fsu.edu) researcher
has demonstrated effective performance of a
carbon-nanotube-supported platinum catalyst
in a PEMFC that uses less than half of
the Pt metal found in conventional fuel cells.
Jim Zheng and colleagues developed a
double-layered carbon nanotube (CNT) and
nanofiber film (buckypaper) to support Pt
nanoparticles as the catalyst material. The
interwoven CNTs form a highly porous and
electrically conductive three-dimensional
network, onto which Pt nanoparticles are
coated. Because the nanoparticles locate
mostly on the accessible external surface
of the membrane, the Pt utilization can exceed
90%, Zheng says, while in conventional
fuel cell membranes, only 40% of the catalyst
surface participates in the reaction. The
FSU team's PEMFC has a platinum load of
0.2 mg/cm2, compared to the 0.45 mg/cm2
in conventional fuel cell membranes. The
group was able to generate a power output
of 0.88 W/cm2 from the fuel cell, nearing a
2015 goal set forth by the U.S. Dept. of Energy
(DOE; Washington, D.C.) of 1.0 W/cm2.
Making MOFs on an industrial scale
B
ASF SE (Ludwigshafen, Germany;
www.basf.com) has developed an industrially
viable process for synthesizing
metal organic frameworks (MOFs),
and plans to scaleup the process within
the next two years. MOFs are crystalline
compounds consisting of metal ions
or clusters coordinated to often rigid
organic molecules to form one-, two-,
or three-dimensional structures with
nanometer-sized pores that allow them
Acrylamide catalyst
a new catalyst that achieves
a 99% conversion of acrylonitrile
to acrylamide has
been developed by Toshiyuki
oshiki, lecturer at okayama
University graduate School of
natural Science and Technology
(www.gnst.okayama-u.
ac.jp) with support of new
energy and industrial Technology
Development organization
(neDo; Kawasaki) and
Japan Science and Technology
agency (JST; Tokyo). The
high activity is comparable
to that of the best laboratory
catalyst - a Pt-based catalyst
reported by a.w. Parkins
in 1995 - but is 1/100th
the cost, says oshiki. in the
laboratory, a 99% yield of
acrylamide is achieved after
reacting acrylonitrile in water
for 0.5-1 h over the patentpending,
metal complex catalyst
at 80°C. oshiki is having
discussions with acrylamide
producers for evaluating the
catalyst at the 100-g scale.
to store H2 or other high-energy gases.
BASF has been working on MOFs since
their discovery in the 1990s by professor
Omar Yaghi at the University of Michigan
at Ann Arbor (he's now at UCLA).
In BASF's process, a metal oxide and
citric acid are simply mixed in water in
a stirred-tank reactor, which leads to the
production of cubic MOFs with the metal
atoms at the corners of the organic frame.
The key to making the synthesis viable
12 ChemiCal engineering www.Che.Com november 2010
on a large scale is that an organic solvent
is not required, making the process
safer and environmentally friendly. The
company is able to achieve large surface
areas and high porosity, which enables the
MOFs to hold relatively large amounts of
gases. The pore size and polarity can be
adjusted for specific applications. MOFs
produced by this process at BASF's pilot
plant are being trialed for natural gas
storage in heavy duty vehicles.
http://www.jgc.co.jp http://www.gnst.okayama-u http://www.ac.jp http://www.fsu.edu http://www.basf.com http://www.Che.Com
Chemical Engineering November 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering November 2010
