Innovative New Uses for Coal Offer a World of Possibilities
"Coal will continue to be a big part of our country’s energy supply. We expect that the industry will find better ways to improve our energy conversion efficiencies for coal and to reduce carbon emissions."
Advanced composite materials have been making steady inroads into military systems for the last 50 years. The demand in the aerospace industry for lighter, stronger materials has facilitated the acceptance of carbon composites for airframe construction. The marine industry finds itself in a similar situation needing better cost-effective material solutions. The push for higher performance for wind energy is pushing toward a move to carbon fiber reinforced composites. NASA’s future missions and deep space exploration require better carbon ablative and nonablative protection systems. High strength and weight remain the winning combination that propels these carbon composite materials into these new arenas.
The transition of these high performance materials into our everyday lives has been somewhat limited because of cost. The most obvious area of interest in these materials is in sporting equipment such as golf clubs, tennis rackets, fishing poles and others. The cost is primarily driven by the fact that the carbon materials are produced from petroleum. Anyone putting gasoline into a car these days can understand this point. Touchstone believes the long-term cost solution is coal. Researchers have historically stayed away from coal because of the contaminants and cleaning costs associated with coal. These problems, however, can be overcome with the advances in technology for the purification and treatment of coal.
A small woman-owned business in Triadelphia near Wheeling, is developing high-value products from coal. CEO Elizabeth Kraftician and Brian Joseph, COO and president, are proud of the progress that the engineers and scientists have made related to coal-based products. Touchstone continues to deliver results that demonstrate our success at the national level. Touchstone has invented a way to convert coal into carbon foam and high density carbons. These new materials are trade-named CFOAM® and CSTONE®. These revolutionary materials are taking the composites industry by storm. The excitement is being generated by unique properties not found in other materials. Potential applications abound and range from composite tooling for aircraft and ships to lightweight insulation for exhaust stacks to thermal protection systems for space vehicles.
These materials offer good acoustical absorption, electrical shielding, low thermal conductivity, fire protection, low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and others and are also being considered by designers in these new products. The development of these types of new products is being driven by more demanding system requirements for multifunctional materials. The applications have focused on bringing high-volume, low-cost carbon into the competitive marketplace as improvements and replacements for current state-of-the-art materials.
Touchstone and other companies are looking into cost-effective methods to produce carbon fibers from coal. Coal can be used to extract pitch (coal tar pitch) which is an excellent precursor to produce carbon/graphite fibers. Coal tar pitch has the potential to be much more economical than petroleum base precursors to produce fibers. These carbon/graphite fibers from coal tar pitch are equivalent to commercial fibers produced from petroleum. The coal-based fiber process is projected to have a fiber price half or less than petroleum-based fibers. The low-cost, coal-based fibers could reduce fuel consumption up to 40 percent. These coal-based materials could substantially reduce the requirement for petroleum imports.
Although Touchstone has a long history of being a materials company, it has quickly been evolving into a products company that can take basic materials, such as coal, and turn them into high-performance products. In the near future, we will see new companies being created that will take these coal based materials and turn them into products we need and can use in our homes. This will create new jobs using a material that we usually burn to power or heat our homes. It is expected that the coal-based product businesses and related technologies will generate hundreds of jobs for Touchstone and our suppliers. We are seeing a tremendous amount of interest from almost every aerospace prime contractor here in the United States and abroad. In fact, these companies are investing time and money to qualify these coal-based related products.
Even when new technologies such as solar and wind energy expand and the demand for coal energy is reduced, the potential revenue and number of jobs based on coal could increase because of the higher value conversion of coal-to-carbon composite products. Coal will continue to be a big part of our country’s energy supply. We expect that the industry will find better ways to improve our energy conversion efficiencies for coal and to reduce carbon emissions. There are better applications for coal, however, than just burning it. For example, a 500-megawatt coal plant produces 3.5 billion kilowatt-hours per year, enough to power a city of about 140,000 people. It burns 1,430,000 tons of coal; this would be enough coal to produce over 74 million cu. ft. of carbon foam and it would be enough carbon foam to fill up the Empire State building twice. The United States consumes over 940 million tons of coal each year, using 90 percent for producing electricity. The price of coal varies but is around $50/ton, or a few pennies per pound.
Touchstone has been able to take that same pound of coal and create a product that is worth $10 per pound of coal, or $20,000 per ton. The point is that there are more valuable things that can be done with coal than just burning it for heat or electricity. These high-value, coal-based products will become available as coal-conversion technologies become more economical. Don’t be surprised when you pick up your lightweight, tough cell phone case or when you get into your car that gets over 50 miles per gallon that it was made possible by lightweight carbon fiber composites. There is probably a good chance that the carbon materials came from coal.
Rick D. Lucas is director, Technology & Innovation at Touchstone Research Laboratory, Ltd.
