Gasifier feed - Tailor-made from Illinois coals. [Quarterly] report, March 1, 1992--May 31, 1992

The main purpose of this project is to produce a feedstock from preparation plant fines from an Illinois coal that is ideal for a slurry fed, slagging, entrained-flow coal gasifier. The high sulfur content and high Btu value of Illinois coals are particularly advantageous in such a gasifier; preliminary calculations indicate that the increased cost of removing sulfur from the gas from a high sulfur coal is more than offset by the increased revenue from the sale of the elemental sulfur; additionally the high Btu Illinois coal concentrates more energy into the slurry of a given coal to water ratio. This project will bring the expertise of four organizations together to perform the various tasks. The Illinois Coal Association will help direct the project to be the most beneficial to the Illinois coal industry. DESTEC Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Company, will provide guidelines and test compatibility of the slurries developed for gasification feedstock. Williams Technology will provide their expertise in long distance slurry pumping, and test selected products for viscosity, pumpability, and handlability. The Illinois State Geological Survey will study methods for producing clean coal/water slurries from preparation plant wastes including the concentration of pyritic sulfur intomore » the coal slurry to increase the revenue from elemental sulfur produced during gasification operations, and decrease the pyritic sulfur content of the waste streams. ISGS will also test the gasification reactivity of the coals. As reported earlier, a variety of possible samples of coal have been analyzed and the gasification performance evaluation reported. Additionally, commercial sized samples of -28 mesh {times} 100 mesh coal -100 {times} 0 coal were subjected to pumpability testing. Neither the coarse product nor the fine product by themselves proved to be good candidates for trouble free pumping, but the mix of the two proved to be a very acceptable product« less