Sharon company reclaiming rare elements from coal
A Sharon, Pennsylvania company is playing a key role in a project using waste from burned coal to recover rare elements needed for national security and high technology products such as cell phones.
SHARON, Pa. - A Sharon, Pennsylvania company is playing a key role in a project using waste from burned coal to recover rare elements needed for national security and high technology products such as cell phones.
Winner Water Services has been given the task of designing and building a pilot-scale chemical processing system in Sharon that will harvest rare earth elements from coal ash, a by-product created when coal is burned to generate energy.
The seventeen rare earth elements have significant value for national security, energy independence, and economic growth because they are used in high-technology products such as catalysts, cell phones, hard drives, hybrid engines, lasers, magnets, medical devices, televisions, and other applications, according to the Department of Energy's Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).
The U.S. has been importing those elements from markets dominated by other countries. The development of an economically competitive domestic supply of elements from U.S. coal and coal by-products will help to maintain our nation's economic growth and national security, according to the DOE.
The pilot project in Sharon would have a capacity to handle a half ton of fine ash per day.
Coal-fired power plants are major producers of coal ash. The components of the ash vary, depending on the type and origin of the coal. Major ingredients in coal ash include rare earth minerals and elements that remain after the coal is burned in the power plant boiler.
America's coal resources contain quantities of Rare Elements that can potentially reduce the nation's dependence on other countries for these critical materials while creating new industries and jobs in regions where coal played key economic roles, according to the DOE.
To create innovative technologies that can harvest REEs from coal resources, NETL created collaborative research and development programs.
REEs occur in low concentrations in coals and coal by-products. Trace amounts are measured in concentrations ranging up to 1,000 parts per million.
In a project supported by NETL and using post-combustion coal ash, Physical Sciences, Inc partnered with the University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research and Winner Water Services to produce a mixed rare earth product using a micro-pilot chemical processing system in its Andover, Mass. laboratory.
Starting with a 500-parts-per-million rare earth concentration in the fine ash fed to the micro-pilot system, PSI made a product with greater than 50,000-ppm rare earth concentrations, or greater than 5 percent by weight- a 100-fold increase in the rare earth concentration.
According to Charles Miller of NETL, PSI will first perform physical processing of ash from the combustion of East Kentucky Fire Clay bituminous coal in a power boiler to produce a non-magnetic fine ash.
Fire Clay coal has relatively high rare earth element concentrations in some areas because it contains volcanic ash, which might have been the source of the elements.
The DOE calls the process is promising because the product concentration significantly exceeded its initial target of 2 percent by weight.
Miller said the pilot-scale chemical processing should begin in 2019 and be complete by March 31, 2020.
According to its website, Winner Water Services provides environmentally sound and technologically advanced solutions to solve water challenges for power, mining and manufacturing, oil, and gas industries.
