The Utah Clean Coal Program has comprehensive simulation capabilities as well as laboratory and pilot-scale coal facilities:
Simulation - Philip Smith's group is the preeminent developer of the coal-combustion and gasification computer codes including the PCGC3, Banff, Glacier, and Jasper codes, used by industry. The group has 3D transient and steady-state computational fluid dynamics codes.
Mercury control - The mercury laboratory includes experimental facilities for studying homogeneous and heterogeneous oxidation reactions as well as clay-based, sorbent-mercury reactions. A methane-fired, plug flow reactor permits studies of homogeneous reactions while fixed-bed and entrained-flow reactors are available for heterogeneous reactions. A continuous, speciating mercury analyzer measures concentrations as low as 1 ng/m3. In addition, the mercury team has access to extensive nuclear magnetic resonance facilities.
Oxy-fuel combustion - The oxy-fuel team will be designing and constructing a new laboratory-scale oxy-fuel combustor and a new single-particle, fluidized-bed reactor, as well as modifying ICSE's existing pilot-scale circulating fluidized-bed reactor.
Gasification - The gasification team has unique capabilities for investigating both fundamental aspects of fuel conversion and performance of actual coal gasification systems. The different laboratories at the Univeristy of Utah and Brigham Young University provide complementary capabilities for studying coal conversion at scales ranging from milligrams to tons per day.
Sequestration - The sequestration team will be developing a high-pressure, high-temperature experimental assembly to analyze CO2, brine and rock reactions for realistic coal-combustion exhaust-gas compositions.
