The US has awarded over $1 million to a team of researchers who would help India develop advanced technologies to clean coal.
WASHINGTON: The US has awarded over $1 million to a team of researchers who would help India develop advanced technologies to clean coal, which would enhance energy production and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The assisstance was conferred upon by the State Department to a project team consisting of researchers from three leading institutes -- Virginia Tech, Indian School of Mines and the University of Kentucky, an official release said.
"It has been shown that use of beneficiated (cleaned) coals can increase thermal efficiencies and can thereby reduce CO2 emissions by up to 15 per cent," said Roe-Hoan Yoon of Centre for Advanced Separation Technology at Virginia Tech.
"By using state-of-the art technologies relating to coal quality, boiler and generator design, instrumentation and control, high-voltage distribution system, India could reduce CO2 emissions to 45 per cent of its present level," he said, citing an International Energy Agency (IEA) report.
Professor Sumantra Bhattacharya of Indian School of Mines said: "In 2005-2006, India produced 380 million tones of coal, but only 17 million tonnes were beneficiated coals delivered to 12 power stations."
He suggested that since it was difficult and costly to remove ash-forming minerals from the Indian coal, "the researchers will (have to) develop low-cost dry beneficiation technologies that can remove well-liberated, easy-to-reject rocks or shales".
One of such processes had already been tested successfully in the US at pilot scale under the sponsorship of the US Department of Energy (DOE), the release said, adding a new method of dry cleaning finer coal will be explored in the India project.
The project will promote rapid deployment of the dry beneficiation processes in India.
In phase one, a pilot-scale deshaling unit with a maximum capacity of five tons per hour will be constructed and installed at different mine sites and/or power plants.
In phase two, a detailed flow sheet and engineering diagrams will be developed to construct a full-scale proof-of-concept plant in India, the release said.
"The successful completion of phase two will constitute a fully operational and commercially viable installation of the proposed technology in India," Yoon said.
"This large-scale test work in phase two eliminates risks associated with scale-up and allows a proof-of-concept plant to serve as a model for future installations in India and abroad."
Upon completion of the plant, a detailed test programme will be developed and carried out to fully define the operational capabilities of this technology and to establish design protocols for future installations in India.
Yoon, an internationally recognised expert in coal processing, is principal investigator for the project.
He will be assisted by co-principal investigators at each of the three universities -- S Bhattacharya, Associate Professor of Electronics and Instrumentation engineering at Indian School of Mines; Rick Honaker, Chair of the Mining Engineering department at the University of Kentucky; and G H Luttrell, the Massey Professor of mining and minerals engineering at Virginia Tech.
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