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Ohio State researcher L.S. Fan earned a $5 million grant last week from the U.S. Department of Energy to research clean ways to burn coal.
Among the 37,000 grant applications, Fan’s project was one of 37 selected. The Department of Energy allotted a total of $151 million to the research projects.
For the last decade, Fans has focused on developing ways to burn coal or biomass to generate electricity while capturing the carbon dioxide created in the process.
He has been successful in capturing carbon dioxide on a small scale in the laboratory, but he says he hopes the grant will help him move to a larger scale — with the goal to make this technology available on a commercial level.
“It’s extraordinary and risky, but it has the potential to make a significant impact,” said Fan, who is also an OSU professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
The grant funding will be available to Fan over the next three years, and the research team is already planning to create a pilot plant at the National Carbon Capture Center in Alabama.
Fan’s team will be given three years to make use of the grant. They are already planning to have a pilot plant at the National Carbon Capture Center in Wilsonville, Ala.
With heated debate over the effects of coal-burning energy, especially in coal-producing states such as Ohio, Fan realizes that his project has the potential to lead to ground-breaking technology.
“This concept is different from the traditional approach,” he said. “If successful, the economic impact could be huge. It will make history.”
