Eco-friendly coal energy
One of the primary targets of the international economy is sustaining energy resources. Present and future industrial development imposes greater demands on comprehensive management of energy supply materials. The options are limited: oil and natural gas resources are expensive and are continuously diminishing; nuclear power generates toxic wastes, difficult and hazardous to dispose of and alternative energy sources such as solar and wind energy are difficult and expensive to implement on an industrial scale. During the past decades, fossil fuels have been extensively used for power generation. Compared to other forms of energy supply, coal resources are more abundant and less expensive. However, their use causes great environmental problems because of the contaminating substances they emit, such as sulphur, mercury, chlorine, and their removal has already been imposed by environmental and industrial standards. A new technology, the Thermal Desorption Technology Recycle-Reduce-Reuse (TDT-3R) takes advantage of a highly innovative technique that processes the raw, high organic sulphur content in coal material in order to offer a preventive solution for eco-friendly energy production. It comprises a continuously operating closed-loop reactor that efficiently removes more than 95% of organic sulphur from coal before burning it. The coal is subsequently carbonised in a totally closed, downsized environment under vacuum by indirect heating. The sulphur is separately recovered. Compared to other methods used, the coal pre-treatment improves the contaminated emissions leading to a long-term, environmentally friendly power generation plant that simultaneously meets with legal emission codes. Since it requires low investment and maintenance costs and coupled by the fact that there are better burning characteristics involved, it is a highly cost efficient solution for cleansing coal. The main value-ended coal can be enhanced with burnable clean refuse providing another fuel option. Other end products, such as gypsum are clean and utilisable. The system is modular, easy to implement without requiring any complicated technical additions or materials and with extremely large annual throughput capacities (up to 650,000 t.p.a). This advanced technology constitutes a highly safe, extremely improved, effective technique for cleansing coal for cleaner energy. It has been designed to meet all present technical requirements imposed by industrial and environmental norms and standards. Furthermore, its design has the potential to satisfy future expectations of our international environmental society.