Chinese group heads to WVU for coal/biomass research

Biorefining Magazine By Luke Geiver April 04, 2011

West Virginia University may now be the unofficial leader in liquid coal and biomass research, but not without a little help from China. In early April a team of WVU researchers will begin a project to test a liquid coal and biomass combination created through pyrolysis and a Fischer Tropsch process, and it will be accomplished with equipment donated from one of China’s largest coal companies, the Lu’ an Group. With a small $304,000 grant from the U.S. DOE, the team will continue a collaborative work effort between the U.S. and China that started in 1999. “This is part of an ongoing support project with the DOE that supports work between China and the U.S. on something called the fossil energy protocol,” said Jerald Fletcher, director at WVU’s U.S.-China Energy Center.

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