On 04/05/15 09:15, Chris Hogg wrote:
But all that still doesn't get away from the fact that you_can_ get
metal and CO2 from metal oxide heated with coal, when you said
it wasn't possible. Whether it's commercially viable or done on a
large scale today is irrelevant to that question. It is technically
possible and was done in the past.

My university is actually researching exactly that.

Its a very interesting technique. Because what actually happens is that
when the coal is burnt with just the oxide, what you get out is white
hot metal and pure carbon dioxide, Which is a lot easier to take out of
the flue than a mixture of it with nitrogen and oxygen which is what
burning coal in air gives.

Then the white hot metal is sprayed with air in a separate chamber,
turning it back to oxide, and removing oxygen from the air in the
process, but adding no CO2, and the white hot oxide is fed back to the
coal combustor again.

For technical reason, this is actually more efficient than burning coal
in air.

As the engineer who was involved said 'we told them it was about carbon
capture to get the grant, but really its about more efficient coal power
stations'...:-)


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Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
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