Halow and others are focusing on the zinc oxide pellets. Coal is cheap and plentiful, but burning it produces sulfur dioxide, so researchers are developing more efficient combustion techniques, including gasification - partially burning the coal to create gas that powers a turbine and generates electricity. Gasification, however, creates another pollutant - hydrogen sulfide. Senior scientist Ranjani Siriwardane has refined the pellets to absorb the hydrogen sulfide before it leaves the smokestack. Now, the task is to find a way to move it through the pipes effectively.
Testing here is all about scale-up.
The pellets may work inside a glass tube the size of a pinky finger, but not when 2,000 pounds are put into a functional 3-megawatt power plant. The cork behaves the way the pellets would in high heat and pressure. Its motion is monitored on computers and in Plexiglas pipes. While most of the other 14 national laboratories were born of the nuclear arms race, the NETL grew out of the race for cleaner energy. Its roots are in the Department of Interior, not the Manhattan Project.