Evan J. Granite, PhD

United States Department of Energy

Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management

Friday, January 20, 2023

9:30 AM

102 Benedum Hall

Host: Mohammad Masnadi

Beyond Combustion - Coal in the 21^st Century

Abstract

     The United States has the largest coal reserves in the world by a large margin.  Much of the recent research on coal utilization in the United States has focused upon the capture of pollutants such as acid gases, particulates, and mercury, and the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from combustion at power stations.   Novel processing and uses for coal is an exciting new research area, representing a dramatic paradigm shift. 

      This abundant, inexpensive and extraordinary rock presents great opportunities. Coal is typically utilized either through combustion or gasification, with approximately 66% burned worldwide.  The United States Department of Energy’s Carbon Ore Program supports the development of technologies for producing value-added products from abundant domestic coals and waste coals.  The program has previously focused upon producing high volume building materials such as bricks, roof shingles, pipes, and deck boards, with outstanding results demonstrating the viability of these technologies. More recently, efforts have been made towards producing high value materials, such as graphene, nanomaterials, graphite, carbon fibers, conductive inks, and specialty (extraordinary high surface area) activated carbons, with highly encouraging early results.  

Disclaimer

     This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government.  Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.  Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof.  The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

Bio

          Evan J. Granite is the Program Manager for Carbon Products from Coal and Senior Technical Advisor at DOE Headquarters.  Evan is an Adjunct Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh; initiated, developed, and led the NETL in house research program on Rare Earth and Critical Material Detection and Recovery; developed and led the NETL in house effort on Emissions Control as Technical Portfolio Lead; and was a Research Chemical Engineer and Research Group Leader at NETL.  Dr. Granite did postdoctoral research at the Department of Energy, received a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester, and BS and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from The Cooper Union.