Energy Department invests $4M in air separation research at National Labs

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy is investing $4 million in four research and development projects led by national labs to identify new concepts and technologies for the production of oxygen via air separation for use in flexible, modular gasification systems.

The projects are supported through a Laboratory Research Call, Technical Support for Advanced Air Separation Concepts and Technologies for the Production of Oxygen, which was issued in June 2018.

The goal of the projects is to develop air separation technologies that could be used in advanced fossil energy-based modular energy systems. These technologies would help enable cost-competitive, coal-based power generation with low emissions and could eventually be used in coal-fed, small-scale modular gasification-based power plants.

Cryogenic distillation-based air separation has an established role in providing oxygen for gasification but accounts for up to 15 percent of the total costs of gasification plants. Outages of the air separation unit can also disrupt the entire gasification plant process. The thermodynamic efficiency of cryogenic air separation plants is approaching theoretical limits as near as is practicable, so a technical breakthrough that would lower costs substantially is unlikely. Because of this, there is a significant incentive to develop a new technology or approach for oxygen separation.

The National Energy Technology Laboratory will manage the projects, which will be conducted by Idaho National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.