The Fossil R The Fossil R The Fossil Report

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Fossil Energy Program Fall 2002

Energy Technology for the Future...and for the World

IN THIS ISSUE

New Work Investigates Removal Of Mercury From

Coal

Farewell to a Friend

Master Index Coming Soon to Web Site

Gas Turbine Conference Coming in February

DOE Honors Ellingson and Sun For Gas Turbine

Research

Stan David Receives Yoshiaki Arata Award

NDE Used to Assess Thermal Barrier Coatings

PNNL Develops Hermetic Seal for High-Temperature

Electrochemical Application

Continuing Resolutions Continuing

The Fossil Report is published quarterly by

Paul T. Carlson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Fossil Energy Program

UNITED WE STAND

New Work Investigates estigates

Removal Of Mer val Of Mercury From

Coal

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, under the direction of Thomas

Klasson, are investigating the biological

modification of coal to remove mercury

from coal prior to thermal processing.

It is estimated that the power-generation industry emits

up to 50 tons of mercury per year, and this level of emissions has serious implications for accumulation of

mercury in the food chain.

Given the serious health and environmental consequences of mercury released from coal during burning

or reforming, this work has far-reaching importance to

the continued use of this country’s most abundant resource.

Drawing on past experience with the use of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria to remove sulfur and iron from coal

through a process known as bioleaching, this work has

the goal of releasing mercury from coal by the same

process.

High-sulfur coals also contain high levels of mercury,

and it is thought that the mercury trapped in coal is

likely to be in the form of mercury-sulfur compounds.

Bioleaching of the coal will, it is anticipated, remove

mercury along with sulfur.

For more information on this work, contact Thomas Klasson,

Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Research sponsored by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory.

Thomas Klasson and

Betty Evans examine a

gas chromatogram

showing PCB removal by

anaerobic and aerobic

bacteria.
2

THE FOSSIL REPORT FALL 2002

Farewell to a Friend

The Fossil Energy Program and the scientific community as a whole lost a good friend this past summer when

Gene Hoffman passed away suddenly at his home.

Gene was the DOE Oak Ridge Operations Manager

responsible for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Fossil Energy Materials Program for nearly twenty years—

from 1979 until his retirement in 1996.

His counsel and ideas were instrumental to a wide variety of successful ventures undertaken by the Program

over that period of time. Much of the success and effectiveness in interfacing with DOE and others in the scientific community was due in large part to Gene’s broad

knowledge of fossil energy materials technologies.

Gene was a member of the Metallurgy Division of Oak

Ridge National Laboratory from 1951 until 1963. He then

spent nine years in the space power division of the General Electric Company before moving to the Atomic Energy Commission in Gaithersburg, MD in 1972. After

seven years with the AEC, Gene joined DOE Oak Ridge

Operations in 1979 and spent the remainder of his career there, retiring in 1996.

Gene continued to be active in retirement, one of his

causes being the cleaning up of stockpiles of depleted

uranium. His persistence was rewarded with funding

provided by DOE and Congress for remediation and

disposal activities.

He also was involved with local government in his work

to enact changes in local laws to prevent cell phone

towers from encroaching on local neighborhoods.

Gene is survived by his wife of 50 years, Beverly, two

daughters, three sons, his mother, a sister, 14 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandsons.

Gene will be sorely missed by all of us who came to

know him, not only as a competent scientist and insightful administrator, but also as a loyal and good

friend.

Gene Hoffman

Master Index Coming Soon to Master Index Coming Soon to Web Site

In the near future, the newsletter index on the Fossil

Energy Program Web site will be replaced by a

hyperlinked list of topics.

The new index will enable easy access to articles of

interest in the full collection of newsletters, without the

necessity of reading through the list of article titles.

Gas Turbine Conf urbine Conference Coming in

February

DOE’s Offices of Fossil Energy and Energy Efficiency and

Renewable Energy have joined with the International Gas

Turbine Institute and eight other organizations to host a

conference entitled Gas Turbines for a National Energy

Infrastructure. The Conference will be held on February

26-27 in Arlington, Virginia.

For more information contact Kim Yavorsky, National Energy

Technology Laboratory.
3

THE FOSSIL REPORT FALL 2002

DOE Honors Ellingson and Sun For Gas DOE Honors Ellingson and Sun For Gas

Turbine Resear urbine Research

William Ellingson and Jiangang

Sun, Argonne National Laboratory, were among a highly-select

group of recipients of a 2001 Research Partnership Award from

the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Research Partnership

Award, given as part of the 2001

Research and Development

Awards and presented by DOE’s

Office of Power Technologies, recognizes outstanding research partnerships

between the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, private companies, and universities

that have resulted in technology advances with national

energy significance.

Ellingson and Sun won the award for their work on nondestructive evaluation development for stationary gas

turbine ceramic components.

Bill Ellingson has been a participant on the DOE Fossil

Energy Advanced Research Materials Program for

nearly 25 years, focusing on the development of nondestructive evaluation methods for structural ceramics and

ceramic coatings.

NDE Used to NDE Used to Assess Thermal Bar Thermal Barrier

Coatings Coatings

Argonne National Laboratory is developing

a novel, nondestructive evaluation method,

based on the backscattering characteristics of polarized laser light, for the assessment of the condition of thermal barrier coatings for hot section components for gas turbine engines.

The method is totally non-contact and can

scan a 1-inch-square region in less than

15 minutes. Argonne has received three patents on this technology.

This NDE method relies on the fact that current

thermal barrier coatings are optically translucent at the

wave lengths of the laser light being used. The laser

light penetrates the TBC and then back-scatters off internal interfaces. The back-scattered light is sensed by

a high-sensitivity optical detector and output to a computer that also controls the motion of the object under

study.

For more information on this work, contact Bill Ellingson,

Argonne National Laboratory.

Research sponsored by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy,

National Energy Technology Laboratory, Advanced Research

Materials Program.

Stan Da Stan David Receiv vid Receives Yoshiaki oshiaki Arata Award

ORNL Metals and Ceramics Division’s Stan David was recently awarded

the Yoshiaki Arata Award by the International Institute of Welding.

The Arata Award is given to a person “who has realized outstanding

achievements in fundamental research in welding science and technology and its allied areas,” and whose research contributes greatly to

the progress of welding engineering and related fields.

Stan has been involved with the Fossil Energy Program over a long

period of time, bringing to the Program his extensive knowledge of joining methods, particularly as they apply to the newer materials used in

advanced fossil energy systems.

Bill Ellingson

Stan David
4

THE FOSSIL REPORT FALL 2002

A schematic drawing of a planar oxygen generator.

Researchers at Pacific Northwest

National Laboratory have developed a new, low-cost method of

hermetically sealing ceramic and

metallic components used in hightemperature electrochemical devices.

The technique, referred to as reactive air brazing, utilizes a novel

copper oxide-silver single phase

liquid as the basis for joining electrochemically active ceramics

such as yttria-stabilized zirconia

and lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite to oxidation resistant metals such as FeCrAlY.

Materials of this type are commonly employed in the

oxygen generators used in syngas production, solid oxide fuel cells, and solid-state sensors.

Unlike the previous sealing techniques, based primarily

on high temperature glasses, the RAB joints exhibit excellent thermal cycling performance and long-term stability in both high-temperature oxidizing and reducing

atmospheres.

An additional advantage of the RAB technique is that

the sealing process is conducted in air, which minimizes

the capital expenses and operating costs associated

with the joining operation.

For more information on this research, contact Scott Weil,

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

This work is supported by the DOE Office of Fossil Energy,

National Energy Technology Laboratory.

PNNL Develops Hermetic Seal f elops Hermetic Seal for High-Temperatur emperature Electr e Electrochemical ochemical Application

Cross-sectional SEM micrograph of an as-brazed

bilayer/FeCrAlY joint.

10μm 

5YSZ FeCrAlY 

Ag-CuO 

braze 

Continuing Resolutions Continuing Continuing Resolutions Continuing

The President has signed a fifth Continuing Resolution, allowing programs with unsigned authorization

bills to continue at FY 2002 levels through January

11.

No further appropriations actions are expected until

the 108th Congress convenes in January 2003.