A promising approach to the clean use of abundant U.S. coal resources is the production of hydrogen through coal gasification. The synthesis gas resulting from coal gasification is required to undergo several processes in order to produce hydrogen of sufficient purity for fuel cells or hydrogen-fueled turbines. Therefore, systems that combine purification and separation of syngas to produce high quality hydrogen in an efficient way are desired. This project will develop an innovative, aerodynamic, inertial gas separation method based on techniques derived from aerospace applications. In this process, the supersonic expansion of syngas, driven by the inherently high pressure and temperature at the gasifier exit, will result in the condensation of certain constituents of the gas mixture, which can be separated and removed from the process stream. Hydrogen may be separated completely through inertial means or removed from an intermediate gas mixture through selective hydrogenation of an aromatic hydrocarbon liquid.
Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The technology should require little (or no) external energy input and is expected to be a low-cost, low-footprint device. The technology should be applicable to a wide variety of gas separation problems and should enable the more widespread use of clean hydrogen-based power technologies
