Ikelic - Alliance Digital Repository

STATUS OF COAL PROJECTS (Underline denotes changes since June 1994)
COMMERCIAL AND R&D PROJECTS (Continued)
M-C Power's IMHEX stack technology will be demonstrated in commercial-scale hardware over the next two years. A process
development power plant was installed at Unocal's Fred L Hartley Research Center in Brca. California and operation will begin in
early 1995. This unit will be followed by a second 250 kW integrated MCFC power plant scheduled for delivery in 1995. San Deigo
Gas & Electric will host this unit at the Naval Air Station Miramar. These demonstrations, in combination with the initial year ac
tivities under the Product Design and Improvement award, will verify the technology and design concepts. During early 1996 the
IMHEX team will solicit commercial orders for power plant deliveries beginning in 1999.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced a $103.9 million five-year cooperative agreement with M-C Power. In addition
to funding provided bv DOE ($70.6 million), the team and the site host, support is being provided bv the Electric Power Research
Institute (EPRJ). the Gas Research Institute (GRI) and several electric and/or gas utilities.
ISCOR - MELTER-GASIFIER PROCESS ISCOR,
Voest-Alpine Industrieanlagenbau (VAI) (C-275)
An alternative steel process that does not use coke has been commercialized at ISCOR's Pretoria works (South Africa). Designed
and built by VAI (Linz, Austria), the plant converts iron ore and coal directly into 300,000 tons per year of pig iron in a meltergasifier,
referred to as the COREX process. Conventional techniques require use of a coke oven to make coke, which is then
reacted with iron ore in a blast furnace. Production costs at the Pretoria plant are said to be 30 percent lower than conventional
method costs.
Startup of the plant was in November 1989. Two separate streams of materials are gravity fed into the melter-gasifier. One stream
is coal (03-0.7 tons of carbon per ton of pig iron produced) with ash, water and sulfur contents of up to 20 percent, 12 percent and
13 percent, respectively. Lime is fed together with the coal to absorb sulfur. The second stream-iron ore in lump, sinter or pellet
form-is first fed to a reduction furnace at 850-900 degrees C and contacted with reducing gas (65-70 percent CO and 20-25 percent
H,,) from the melter-gasifier. This step reduces the ore to 95 percent metal sponge iron. The metallization degree of the sponge
ir6n where it comes into contact with the 850-900 degree C hot reducing gas produced in the reduction furnace, is 95 percent on
average.
High plant availability, low maintenance and cost savings led to blast furnace production at ISCOR. Pretoria Works, being totally
replaced by the COREX Process. The last blast furnace was shut down in March 1992. making it the first steel plant world-wide to
produce hot metal exclusively by the COREX Process.
The sponge iron proceeds to final reduction and melting in the melter-gasifier, where temperatures range from 1,100 degrees C
near the top of the unit to 1300-1,700 degrees C at the oxygen inlets near the bottom. Molten metal and slag are tapped from the
bottom. As a byproduct of the hot metal production export gas is obtained, which is a high quality gas with a caloric value of ap
2000 kcal/Nm Voest-Alpine says the pig iron quality matches that from blast furnaces, and that costs were $150 per
proximately .
ton in 1990.
Other VAI COREX plants have been ordered world-wide. POSCO. Korea, is planning a 2.000 ton/day plant to begin operations
in 1995. JINDAL, India, has contracted for a COREX plant with a 600.000 ton annual production. In late 1994. HANBO. Korea
has ordered two COREX plants.
VAI is also collaborating with Geneva Steel to demonstrate the technology in the United States. Geneva Steel's Utah Vineyard
site is to be the location for the COREX plant, the first facility in the USA. Air Products and Centerior Energy are consortial
partners of Geneva Steel.
- K-FUEL COMMERCIAL FACILITY KFx Inc. (C-290)
The K-Fuel process was invented by Edward Koppelman and developed further at SRI International between 1976 and 1984. In
1984, K-Fuel Partnership, the predecessor to KFx Inc. (KFx), was formed to commercialize the process. KFx owns the worldwide
patents and international licensing rights to the process in the United States and 37 foreign countries.
KFx is currently commercializing two of the principal methods to produce its clean fuel: a steam-based technology known as Series
"B,"
and a nitrogen-based Series "C"
technology. Both technologies physically and chemically transform high-moisture, low-energy,
low-grade coal, lignite, peat or other organic feedstocks (e.g., bagasse, biomass, municipal solid waste, sludge, wood waste) into a
low-moisture, high-energy fuel product. K-Fuel from a low-rank coal feedstock has a pound-for-pound heating value 60 percent
higher than that of the raw coal. When burned, this fuel produces less than 0.8 pounds of SO /MMBTU. Additionally, lab tests
indicate that fuel NO emissions can be up to 80 percent less than those generated when burning conventional bituminous coals.
KFx, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, owns and operates a full demonstration facility, research center, and a Class A
laboratory at the Fort Union Coal Mine near Gillette, Wyoming. The Series "A"
(hot-gas based) pilot facility, which can produce
25 tons of K-Fuel per day, has been in operation since July 1988. The Series "B"
pilot unit demonstrates the technology at bench-
scale. The Series "C scale-up facility, completed and successfully proven for commercial operation in late 1993, produces two tons
per hour. Harris Group, a Denver-based engineering firm, and Western Research Institute of Laramie, Wyoming, have completed
an engineering and "C"
feasibility study on the Series process that proved the technology both feasible and economical.
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SYNTHETIC FUELS REPORT, JANUARY 1995