Los Alamos, ZECA Corp. recognized by Scientific American

The Laboratory and ZECA Corp. have been recognized in Scientific American's December issue as providing one of the most significant "path-breaking developments that have taken place in recent months in laboratories, corporate suites and the halls of government," according to the article.

The issue highlights ZECA Corp. and its collaboration with Los Alamos in the Scientific American 50 article as being the "Business Leader in Environmental Science" for 2003. The work recognized by Scientific American relates to the use of coal to produce hydrogen and electricity without any atmospheric emissions. According to researchers, in the face of global instability of energy supplies, it is increasingly important for North Americans to safely access their indigenous energy reserves. In this regard, the large coal reserves in North America are the nation's 'ace in the hole.' However, traditional coal power plants produce atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and other gases, some of which are pollutants.

Laboratory researchers originally proposed this second-generation, zero-emission concept for using coal for power generation. The Los Alamos concept involves the conversion of coal into hydrogen and electricity using a series of steps that have been tested in other processes but never combined for this purpose. A unique aspect of this approach is the integration of carbon dioxide removal with hydrogen production so as to increase overall efficiency of electrical generation from coal. The process recycles the inevitable waste heat generated by high temperature fuel cells during electricity production to create additional hydrogen while separating out the carbon dioxide, which can then be stored permanently in the earth by pumping into briny reservoirs or converting it to a solid carbonate. When fully developed, the process is projected to get twice as much useful electricity from a ton of coal as is currently produced in coal-fired generators. As an added benefit, it is particularly appropriate for electrical generation in arid areas because the system does not require cooling water, which conventional systems now need. Ultimately, zero-emission coal holds the promise of being the major source of low cost fuel for the hydrogen economy, researchers say.

To evaluate the feasibility of this concept, Los Alamos researchers collaborated with a group of international participants -- known as The Zero Emission Coal Alliance -- to have these concepts vetted by Nexant, an independent engineering consultant. On successful completion of this task, ZECA Corp. was formed in 2001 and is continuing the collaboration with Los Alamos to address some of the remaining technical needs. Los Alamos research has been supported by the Department of Energy via Laboratory Directed Research and Development funds.

Laboratory researchers recently achieved a major breakthrough when the team operated a tiny prototype fuel cell at 1,000 degrees celsius in a high-sulfur environment with no degradation of the fuel cell materials. This development will have widespread impacts on other zero-emission coal concepts as well as the ZECA and Los Alamos project.

Just as important is work that Los Alamos has done to address mercury emissions. Meeting the new environmental limits on mercury emissions is a challenge for current technology. However, the closed-system aspect of Los Alamos' proposed zero-emission method allows mercury to be removed with condensed water; recent Los Alamos research has identified a novel approach to clean this water to drinking water standards.

Alan Johnson, managing director of ZECA Corp., said he is pleased to acknowledge the tremendous importance of the work done at Los Alamos in this initiative. "The real achievement has been that Los Alamos has enabled us to see that by fundamentally redesigning the way we extract energy from coal, we can virtually eliminate emissions to the air and double efficiency at reasonable cost," Johnson said.

--Kathy DeLucas

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