Transportation fuels feasibility study

This chapter reports results of a similar study to determine the feasibility of converting solvent refined coal (SRC) to transportation fuels. The next chapter discusses upgrading of H-Coal process products. 

Hphis chapter presents results of a Chevron Research Company study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate the feasibility of converting whole shale oil to a synthetic crude resembling a typical petroleum distillate. The synthetic crude thus produced then can be processed, in conventional petroleum-refining facilities, to transportation fuels such as high-octane gasoline and diesel and jet fuels. The raw shale oil feed used in this study is a typical Colorado shale oil produced in a surface retort in the so-called indirectly heated mode. 

On the basis of promising laboratory and pilot-scale results, DOE commissioned a feasibility study for a 300 ton per day (t/d) plant to convert waste plastic and/or waste tires into transportation fuel and to co-process coal with these waste polymers as required [23], The principal results of this study were published in Chemtech [22]. Here we present only a brief summary of the feasibility study results for a 300 t/d plant converting waste plastic into oil. 

All of these LWR-derivative concepts rely on traditional uranium dioxide fuel clad in Zr alloy. However, heat transport and refuelling are non-traditional. The designs are either at a feasibility study or conceptual design stage. Several years of further R D will be required prior to licensing and commercialization of these concepts, but they have a potential to be available for deployment sooner than the other longer-term concepts. 

Potential fusion appHcations other than electricity production have received some study. For example, radiation and high temperature heat from a fusion reactor could be used to produce hydrogen by the electrolysis or radiolysis of water, which could be employed in the synthesis of portable chemical fuels for transportation or industrial use. The transmutation of radioactive actinide wastes from fission reactors may also be feasible. This idea would utilize the neutrons from a fusion reactor to convert hazardous isotopes into more benign and easier-to-handle species. The practicaUty of these concepts requires further analysis. 

Membrane operation in the fuel cell is affected by structinal characteristics and detailed microscopic mechanisms or proton transport, discussed above. However, at the level of macroscopic membrane performance in an operating fuel cell with fluxes of protons and water, only phenomenological approaches are feasible. Essentially, in this context, the membrane is considered as an effective, macrohomogeneous medium. All structures and processes are averaged over micro-to-mesoscopic domains, referred to as representative elementary volume elements (REVs). At the same time, these REVs are small compared to membrane thickness so that non-uniform distributions of water content and proton conductivities across the membrane could be studied. 

Applicable study for high temperature multilayer insulation has been continued by German researchers in early 1990s. They survived the feasibility of using of such insulations in space transportation vehicles. They neglect solid conduction and used optically thick approximation for radiation modeling [5]. Also a research has been done about application of MLl in fuel cell. The researchers used optically thick approximation and compared the results with experimental data [1]. A numerical solution presented for heat transfer in MLl. In preceding study optically thick approximation has been used and effective thermal conductivity for fibrous insulations has been obtained [6],... 

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