MORGANTOWN – West Virginia University engineering professor Fernando Lima has been awarded $110,000 from the American Chemical Society’s Petroleum Research Fund to improve natural gas utilization processes, which he said will help West Virginia understand new ways to thrive in the clean energy arena.
“The grant will be used for conducting computational studies for improving natural gas utilization processes,” Lima told The West Virginia Record. “These studies will be performed by undergraduate and graduate students at WVU, who will be trained to provide society with a new science and engineering workforce that will have the necessary skills needed to succeed in a future clean energy environment.”
Lima, assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering in the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, received the two-year grant from the fund’s Doctoral New Investigator program.
With the funding, Lima and the students will study the design of membrane reactors, a device for chemical reactions and gas separations, for the direct methane aromatization conversion to chemicals and fuels. According to a WVU news release, methane aromatization is a chemical reaction that creates hydrogen and benzene, important elements in producing complex chemicals and fuels.
“By using this unique approach to design natural gas utilization processes, we can better determine whether current and upcoming utilization processes are feasible from both technological and economical perspectives,” said Lima. “In a world where companies are competing for new technologies with narrow margins, it is critical to find ways to improve the use of natural gas.”
Lima said his research is particularly important in West Virginia and the Appalachian region because of the Marcellus Shale boom.
“Once we develop the approaches for optimally designing and intensifying the natural gas conversion process, we may be able to reduce costs and minimize the environmental impact of utilizing Marcellus Shale gas in the region,” Lima said.
Lima’s research aligns with the recently formed Shale Gas Center at WVU, which seeks to develop technologies to serve the natural gas industry.
“This research could benefit West Virginia by potentially accelerating the development of new technologies for the efficient, economical and sustainable utilization of natural and shale gas, which is available in the Marcellus Shale play that is found in West Virginia and the Appalachian region,” Lima said. “We want to put WVU at the forefront of responsible and feasible gas utilization.”
The grant comes while West Virginia looks for ways to adapt to changes necessitated by the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) issuance of its Clean Power Plan in August of 2015. Under the Clean Power Plan, existing power plants in West Virginia would be required to reduce the rate of carbon dioxide emissions by 37 percent in 2030 compared to 2012 levels or, if West Virginia elects to rely on a statewide emissions cap, by 29 percent from 2012 levels.
West Virginia led a group of 28 states that responded to the Clean Power Plan by filing a lawsuit challenging the EPA’s authority. On Feb. 9, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay, and oral argument in the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled for September.
