Coal Gasification: A New Take on an Old Technology

Coal gasification is an established technology that—while recently overlooked in favor of natural gas— has made a comeback in recent years due to the extraordinary demand for natural gas. In this process, coal is reacted with a combination of air and steam at high temperatures to convert the coal into a product stream containing carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, along with other impurities such as hydrogen sulfide. These products, also known as syngas, can be used for a range of applications including:

• Hydrogen Production
• Synthetic Natural Gas
• Methanol Production
• Ammonia Production

In addition to the applications outlined above, the syngas can also be burned directly within an integrated gasification combined cycle power plant to generate electricity. Unlike traditional pulverized coal power plants, which remove particulates and pollutants after combustion, IGCC plants enable pollution controls to be implemented when the stream is both at higher pressures and concentrations. This difference enables cleaner and more efficient operation of pollution controls.

Applied Analytics has helped countless organizations around the world implement these solutions with our premier process analyzer. Some of these applications include:

• Hydrogen sulfide monitoring to ensure catalysts remain free of sulfur poisons.
• Hydrogen monitoring to ensure recycle streams and process reactions are within acceptable parameters.
• Ammonia measurements to ensure that processes are fully optimized and yielding the best results.
• Along with countless other applications that aren’t listed here.

If you have an application that you would like to learn more about, please reach out to an AAI team member, and let us provide you a window into your process.