Diversified Energy prepares gasification tech for fabrication

Gilbert, Ariz.-based Diversified Energy said today it has completed key milestones to progressing its advanced gasification development program, which has been partly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

With a two-year, $945,000 grant from the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, the company is focused on designing and demonstrating that its OmniGas gasifier can process one ton per day of biomass, coal, and other blends. But the company’s Chairman and CEO David Thompson told the Cleantech Group today that the company has bigger ambitions.

“We think this is going to tear the bottom out of the cost of gasification because it’s a much simpler implication using a molten metal bath,” he said.

The company’s long-term plan, which is about two years away, is to produce a commercial unit capable of generating 20 tons per day, Thompson said.

The private company said the OmniGas device uses a patent-pending molten slag approach to produce syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which could be used by more than 14,000 U.S. industrial consumers of large volumes of natural gas. The device can gasify a range of hydrocarbon inputs, such as biomass and municipal solid waste.

The gasifier also produces syngas that the company says is relatively free of tars and oils, and therefore it’s easier to clean up in the gaseous phase, Thompson said. It’s also considered to be economical and reliable for industrial scale process heating applications.

While there are several companies pursuing molten bath processes, Thompson said his company’s has some unique design features, which are proprietary.

After completing a detailed design of a demonstration reactor on schedule and on budget, Thompson said the company said is now moving into the fabrication phase, which includes procuring and manufacturing the components and assembling and integrating the reactor. This is expected to take place this winter at the company’s lab in Arizona.

The reactor is then expected to be transported to the Energy and Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D., where it is to be integrated with processing equipment, before it moves into testing in the summer of 2010.

The company is currently seeking $10 million to continue advancing the technology, which has been funded to date with about $12 million between what the company has raised and government funding (see DOE funds new coal gasification process).

“We’d like to book that right now,” said Thompson, who has put about $5 million of his own funds into Diversified Energy.

The company’s first application would be high volume production of hydrogen from petroleum coke as a feedstock, and its first target would be in gasoline and diesel refining, Thompson said.

Diversified Energy has also been focused on algae production, with what Thompson described as a low-cost algae farming approach (see Let them eat algae). The company built an algae farm in Arizona and was able to double algae growth in 48 hours.

However, Thompson said the company is putting its algae research on the back burner. He said while algae has received attention for its ability to make oil, it hasn’t been able to be done economically. Breakthroughs will be required to make that happen.

“Our advice on algae: Proceed with caution,” he said.

Diversified Energy has also licensed a process from North Carolina State University that produces a biofuel similar to traditional unleaded gasoline (see NC State research produces biofuel similar to unleaded and Bio jet fuel breakthrough?).

The company said the production process, called Centia, takes any renewable oil input source, including oils derived from agriculture crops, algae, animal fats, and waste greases, and produces transportation fuels that are one-for-one replacements for petroleum jet fuel, diesel, and gasoline.

Thompson said the company attracted $3 million in government funding for this effort in the last six months, and is continuing to advance the technology from the lab to a batch process. It's also about two years away from being on the market, he said.

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