PHYSICAL SCIENCES INC. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase II: 18c

Description

Domestic coal can be used to manufacture high value carbon products for multiple applications.The market value of these high performance materials often exceeds the fuel and heat value of coal, which illustrates there are sustainable market forces for manufacturing carbon materials from coal.Current processes to produce high performance carbon materials from coal pose significant challenges associated with the substantial chemical modifications of the native coal structures that require high temperatures and/or strongly oxidative, highly corrosive reagents.This small business proposes an innovative approach for producing high value, carbon-based products from coal feedstocks for the manufacturing of high conductivity materials for electrochemical applications.The process requires minimal reagent usage, efficient recycling (>90%) and produces a carbon product for electrochemical applications with 20-30X higher value than the coal price.In addition, the process generates valuable byproducts such as minerals and low emission gaseous fuels.During Phase I, this small business successfully demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed approach.Domestic coal feedstocks were screened and selected, scalable processes were demonstrated to produce the high conductivity material, and high performance battery electrodes suitable for use in next generation lithium ion batteries were produced with the material.A techno-economic analysis was performed to outline pathways for scale-up and further development in Phase II.This analysis demonstrated that the Phase I processes are economically viable for the scaleup production of the target high conductivity carbon material.The overall goal of the Phase II program is to demonstrate the scale-up of the Phase I process to enable the technology transition into pilot and commercial production.During the Phase II effort, this small business will: (a) demonstrate scale-up production of the high conductivity carbon material; (b) demonstrate the performance in battery electrode formulations, and (c) develop a transition and scale-up plan for profitable conversion of coal to high conductivity carbon on the multi-ton scale.The proposed approach will demonstrate an economically viable process to produce high value, conductive carbon-rich materials from coal feedstocks.These materials will have a much higher market value than the fuel value of coal, and thus will provide a sustainable market for their manufacturing.In addition, the proposed process will generate valuable co-products that can be integrated with other commercial operations such as the recovery of trace elements and low-emission energy production.