Martian 'coal'

Antius · 2015-11-06 11:07:24

This article describes a proposed device drawing power from CO2 sublimation.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/2008 … tion-maybe

This raises the interesting prospect that stored CO2 could be used as a power source, in much the same way as coal and oil is used here on Earth. One can imagine mining Martian solid CO2 from polar caps, heating it to its melting point at a pressure of 5.11atm and transporting it to a base site by pipeline. It could then be boiled using ground heat in a boiler or allowed to freeze and covered with soil for storage. If the dry ice is stored under a few metres of soil, then it will remain solid at Martian night-time temperatures even at the equator.

The energy released by boiling and venting to the Martian atmosphere at 273K (assuming a 10KPa exhaust pressure) is some 0.7MJ/kg. On this basis, a power station fed by a pipeline providing 1m3 of liquid CO2 per second, could raise 700MW of power.

Last edited by Antius (2015-11-06 11:12:18)

SpaceNut · 2015-11-06 22:03:59

Interesting idea to use a pipeline to the poles to gather the frozen cap (mostly Co2) to transport it to a local that would be able to directly make use of it....via mining it placing it into a chamber that connects to the pipeline after applying heat causing it to vent into the system transporting via gas to the other end of the pipeline for use.

Solar concentration could be used to heat the mined sample in the chamber....which could turn a turbine that vents into the pipeline....

Tom Kalbfus · 2015-11-07 09:49:12

An ice cube is a source of energy, heat flows from the outside into the ice cube to melt it, you can harness that heat flow to power various devices. Storing the energy of dry ice requires an insulated container. I think other sources of energy on Mars include Uranium deposits, Solar Energy, and wind, though solar and wind power is very weak on Mars.

I've never heard any proposal to mine Uranium on Mars and to use it to power a nuclear reactor their, its always been that with an imported nuclear reactor, nuclear fuel is always brought. I think the facilities to process Uranium ore into Uranium fuel for reactors would be quite extensive.

Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2015-11-07 09:52:30)

SpaceNut · 2015-11-07 21:44:47

Once a reactor could be built I would think that the first fuel for it might be thorium as it seems quite plentiful....

Also the pipeline if its large enough in size could allow for the remaining minerals to be brought down to the end via a trolley car or some other bucket that could be set inside on a rail system powered by solar to the waiting crew that could use that material.

Now the Co2 that does go into a gas state once at the destination could be placed into another chamber that uses the natural cooling of night temperatured via a heat exchanger could refreeze the Co2 back into dry ice.

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-12 11:15:12

For SpaceNut .... this topic dates to 2015 .... it didn't stretch very far ...

This post is to record (for posterity mostly) a suggestion I just offered to a US Senator.

The message will be read by a staff person, and that will be the end of it, except that it will go into the US Federal Government correspondence database, never to be heard from again.

U.S. Senator <snip> is (rightly) concerned about the well-being of his constituents, specifically about the well-being of the coal industry. You (Senator <snip>) have an opportunity to help Senator <snip>, by showing him a pathway that leads to prosperity for his constituents ** and ** for elimination of the burning of coal as a contributor to global climate change.
The key is whether Senator <snip> is willing to permit and encourage nuclear fission power plants in his state. To take just one example of many, toilet paper is a useful product that is currently made from trees, but trees are needed to capture carbon.
A solution is to make toilet paper (and many other products) from coal using nuclear fission power to drive the processes. All refined products require investment of energy, and nuclear power ** must ** be mastered by the human race in order to facilitate expansion away from Earth.
For staff ... please do NOT send a boiler plate response that has nothing to do with my message.
I am doing my part by offering a suggestion based upon years of experience in futures studies and more importantly, future shaping. If you value this contribution, I would be pleased to hear about it. Otherwise, please don't devalue the offer with boiler plate.
<snip>
(th)
Serving as a (Junior) Moderator at NewMars.com/forums of the Mars Society, as tahanson43206.
(th)

The idea of making toilet paper (or similar products) flows naturally from the processes already discussed at great length in this forum, for manufacture of hydrocarbons for energy storage using nuclear fission power.

Ultimately ** all ** these products will be made using fusion power, but fission is what we have now, so (in my opinion) we should use it.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2022-11-12 12:54:49

Is it even possible to change coal into a paper fiber product?

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-12 13:14:50

For SpaceNut re #6

What a terrific question!

Thanks for providing what I hope will be a wide and long runway for NewMars members, or for those who may join NewMars in the future.

Of course the answer would be yes, because Ma Nature has been delivering wood for millions of years, and coal is just solidified vegetable matter full of Carbon and Hydrogen and other assorted useful materials.

At one time, we had PhD level chemists in the mix, but it may be time to enlist some new ones.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2022-11-12 13:29:02

What we know about these are that Bituminous coal is 205 lbs CO2/mm BTU– wood and wood waste is 195 lbs per mm BTU.

But coal does not have cellulose fibers or pulp and that is what is used for paper. That seems to be a no as nothing comes up when googled.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio … ierer_Lens

https://www.miconveyancesolutions.com/i … ulp-paper/

https://dancopaper.com/about/process/

http://blog.pulpandpaper-technology.com … -to-paper/

tahanson43206 · 2022-11-12 15:42:54

For SpaceNut .... thanks for continuing to think about the production of cellulose from raw materials ....

Ma Nature has been making cellulose for millions of years, if not more.

It there a reason why humans are incapable of replicating that achievement?

Is there a lack of knowledge, perhaps?

Here's a starting point...

Cellulose
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
Cellulose[1]
Cellulose, a linear polymer of D-glucose units (two are shown) linked by β(1→4)-glycosidic bonds
Three-dimensional structure of cellulose
Identifiers
CAS Number
9004-34-6 check
ChEMBL
ChEMBL2109009 ☒
ChemSpider
None
ECHA InfoCard 100.029.692 Edit this at Wikidata
EC Number
232-674-9
E number E460 (thickeners, ...)
KEGG
C00760
PubChem CID
14055602
UNII
SMD1X3XO9M check
CompTox Dashboard (EPA)
DTXSID3050492 Edit this at Wikidata
Properties
Chemical formula (C
12H
20O
10)
n
Molar mass 162.1406 g/mol per glucose unit
Appearance white powder
Density 1.5 g/cm3
Melting point 260–270 °C; 500–518 °F; 533–543 K Decomposes[2]
Solubility in water none
Thermochemistry
Std enthalpy of
formation (ΔfH⦵298) −963,000 kJ/mol[clarification needed]
Std enthalpy of
combustion (ΔcH⦵298) −2828,000 kJ/mol[clarification needed]
Hazards
NFPA 704 (fire diamond)
NFPA 704 four-colored diamond
110
NIOSH (US health exposure limits):
PEL (Permissible) TWA 15 mg/m3 (total) TWA 5 mg/m3 (resp)[2]
REL (Recommended) TWA 10 mg/m3 (total) TWA 5 mg/m3 (resp)[2]
IDLH (Immediate danger) N.D.[2]
Related compounds
Related compounds Starch
Except where otherwise noted, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 °C [77 °F], 100 kPa).
☒ verify (what is check☒ ?)
Infobox references
Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula (C6-H10-O5)
n, a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units.[3][4] Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell wall of green plants, many forms of algae and the oomycetes. Some species of bacteria secrete it to form biofilms.[5] Cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer on Earth.[6] The cellulose content of cotton fiber is 90%, that of wood is 40–50%, and that of dried hemp is approximately 57%.[7][8][9]
Cellulose is mainly used to produce paperboard and paper. Smaller quantities are converted into a wide variety of derivative products such as cellophane and rayon. Conversion of cellulose from energy crops into biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol is under development as a renewable fuel source. Cellulose for industrial use is mainly obtained from wood pulp and cotton.[6]
Some animals, particularly ruminants and termites, can digest cellulose with the help of symbiotic micro-organisms that live in their guts, such as Trichonympha. In human nutrition, cellulose is a non-digestible constituent of insoluble dietary fiber, acting as a hydrophilic bulking agent for feces and potentially aiding in defecation.

The reason (I suspect) we (humans) have never tried to make cellulose from raw materials is because we've never had a reason to do so.

Now, as we look forward to expanding away from Earth, we have good and sufficient reasons to learn how to do what Nature figured out millions of years ago.

(th)

kbd512 · 2022-11-12 16:37:36

Chinese scientists turn black coal by-product into white paper

After nearly a decade of research, fly ash could reduce amount of wood pulp used in paper production.
More than 2,000 years after the invention of paper in China, the country’s scientists are claiming another first – a breakthrough that replaces its key ingredient with the dirty waste from coal-fired power plants. The result – which is almost indistinguishable from paper made from wood pulp – achieves a more than 90 per cent match to pure whiteness, despite being made with the black fly ash produced from burning coal.
The process has passed stringent tests in real production lines and is ready for mass application, with some Chinese paper mills now able to replace nearly half the wood fibres in their products with the chimney waste, according to scientists involved in the government-funded research programme.
The breakthrough has come nearly 10 years after Professor Zhang Meiyun, from the Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, and her colleagues first proposed that fly ash could be used as a filler in paper. The new product addresses two problems – the environmental impact of the global industrial demand for timber and how to dispose of millions of tonnes of fly ash each year.
Paper mills are responsible for more than 40 per cent of the timber felled globally for industrial use which “has devastating impacts on some of the world’s most ecologically important places and species”, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Because most forests in China are protected, the country’s paper mills source wood pulp mainly from Canada, Russia, the United States and other countries endowed with vast forests. China has the world’s largest paper industry, with paper and pulp production reaching nearly 100 million tonnes annually – more than all European countries combined.
China is also the world’s largest electricity producer, collecting about 700 million tonnes of fly ash each year, according to government statistics. About 70 per cent of this waste – a by-product of coal combustion composed of fine particles containing various minerals such as calcium and silicon – is used by the construction industry but the remainder has had nowhere to go, until now.
To Zhang and her colleagues, the fly ash was a promising candidate as a wood pulp substitute because its chemical and physical properties were similar to industrial additives – such as talcum powder and kaolin – already used in paper production.
They soon realised it was easier said than done. “The first sheets that came out in our lab looked grey,” Dr Song Shunxi, another scientist in the programme, said. “We had a Cinderella but the paper industry wanted a Snow White. It didn’t work out very well.” The problem was the presence in the fly ash of unburnt carbon particles which reduced the paper’s brightness. Without a cost-effective method to remove these particles, the project was stuck. Datang Power, one of the largest state-owned electricity producers in China, joined the programme with a potential solution.
Many coal beds in China contain aluminium, and the chemical process to extract aluminium from fly ash was known to have a whitening effect. At an aluminium factory next to a Datang power plant in Inner Mongolia, the scientists found a suitable fly ash and brought the sample back to their lab in Xian. The sheet turned bright, just as they had predicted, but it was too brittle and inflexible for use. According to Song, this latest problem was caused in part by the size and shape of the fly ash particles, and it took the scientists and engineers several years to fine-tune the processing of raw fly ash to achieve the perfect grains.
“Plant fibre is organic, fly ash is not. Blending them together is difficult, and there are lots of gaps to fill between the fibres,” Song said. “Nobody wants to use paper on which the ink spreads or which has dust coming off.” There was no simple solution to this problem, the scientists found, because improving one property of the material could easily lead to the degradation of another.
It was not until 2014 that the team found an effective formula that addressed all elements in the papermaking process – from the atomic structure of the different materials, to the amount of water added to the pulp, to the brand of adhesive chemicals added to bind the different components.
The technology worked perfectly in the laboratory but no factory wanted to try it. To use it, production lines required modification and workers and engineers needed time to learn and become familiar with the process. There was also concern that if the technology failed, a plant could miss its annual production target.

I suspect the reason humans have never tried to make paper from coal is that it's a generally bad idea, the result is a mediocre paper product that may cause health problems from inhaling the dust it can generate if the process isn't tweaked properly, you still have to burn the coal in order to turn the resultant fly ash into paper, and said fly ash is already used in huge quantities to make cement / concrete / steel, so the waste product in question already has a vital role to play in making products that no advanced industrialized civilization can live without- steel and concrete. If we have piles of fly ash sitting around with no other uses, then yes, let's do something useful with it.

As we move away from Earth, we will no doubt grow hemp on other planets to make high quality paper products without growing trees.

kbd512 · 2022-11-12 16:48:35

If 70% of fly ash is consumed in construction, then the most obvious answer is to get rid of the other 30% by making 30% more steel and concrete. I guess that answer doesn't keep research scientists employed for 10 years, though. I do wonder what all of that education and brain power could have done if it was focused on more significant problems that weren't so easy to address, rather than increasing the cost of a sheet of paper by adding even more toxic chemicals to the manufacturing process. I guess we'll never know since that decade of their time was spent on a trivial pursuit.

Steve Stewart · 2022-11-13 10:48:49

On the subject of making coal on Mars:
On Earth, coal is used in the production of steel, aluminum, cement, liquid fuels (CTL - Coal To Liquid), and many other uses. Mars doesn't have any coal. "Synthetic coal" can be made on Mars from plants grown on Mars. And an "artificial plant" could be used to create some fossil fuels on Mars.

Biocoal – new tool for energy transition

Scientists create artificial plant that could spell the end of fossil fuels
The article above states:

The test unit converts light, carbon dioxide and water into a clean and stable fuel that can either be used directly or converted into hydrogen.

YouTube Video
How wood waste is turned into a coal substitute

On the subject of making paper on Mars:
In accent times, papyrus (paper plant) was used for making paper. There are several plants that can be grown on Mars to produce paper.
EPA.gov states:

Over the centuries, paper has been made from a wide variety of materials such as cotton, wheat straw, sugar cane waste, flax, bamboo, wood, linen rags, and hemp. Regardless of the source, you need fiber to make paper.

The Green Room: Alternative Fibers
The article above states:

Many of the most durable and energy efficient papers don’t begin with a tree in the first place. While trees can take decades to grow, most tree-free fibers grow seasonally. There are many alternative fiber papers available to those willing to step out of the box. Bamboo, cork, cotton, hemp, mulberry and even stone (yes, stone) are just some of the options available to you.

SpaceNut · 2023-11-27 12:25:40

So, the topic of coal keeps coming up for energy as well as for other carbon-based materials to make use of.
So how much does it take to create what a small colony might require.

How much coal, natural gas, or petroleum is used to generate a kilowatthour of electricity?

The annual average amounts of coal, natural gas, and petroleum fuels used to generate a kilowatthour (kWh) of electricity by U.S. electric utilities and independent power producers in 2022 were:1
Coal–1.14 pounds/kWh
Natural gas–7.42 cubic feet/kWh
Petroleum liquids–0.08 gallons/kWh
Petroleum coke–0.85 pounds/kWh
The annual average number of kWh generated per amount of coal, natural gas, and petroleum fuels consumed for electricity generation by U.S. electric utilities and independent power producers in 2022 were:1
Coal–0.88 kWh/pound
Natural gas–0.13 kWh/cubic foot
Petroleum liquids–12.90 kWh/gallon
Petroleum coke–1.18 kWh/pound

Calliban · 2023-11-27 13:49:38

The original subject of this article appears to have been the mining of dry ice and use of some low grade heat source to raise mechanical power. I have considered similar ideas. The problem with natural dry ice on Mars is that it is concentrated at the southern polar cap. This is in the opposite hemisphere to where our settlements are likely to be. Trying to build a pressurised pipeline for LCO2, shipping it thousands of km over the mountainous south highlands to our northern settlements, just so they can boil it in concentrated sunlight, doesn't strike me as a paying proposition. The energy density of LCO2 is too low to make this worthwhile. So I have to differ with the author on this idea.

SpaceNut · 2024-01-01 11:01:36

If this is possible for mars then China tests world's largest, 600,000-ton, coal-to-ethanol production plant

According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), China's annual demand for ethanol is 10 million tonnes. The country was able to produce 2.7 million tonnes of ethanol last year through fermentation of aged grain. However, the significant shortfall from its requirement meant that the country ended up importing the remaining alcohol.
The DICP has developed DMTE, a process that can generate methanol from coke oven gas, which is then made to react with other materials to generate ethanol. Coke oven gas is a by-product of coke production, which uses low-grade coal as a starting material, something China has in abundance.

tahanson43206 · 2024-01-01 11:55:05

For SpaceNut re #15

By any chance, are you proposing to manufacture ethanol on Mars?

If that is the case, it seems to me you could draw upon discussions in this forum to put together a plan to make that happen.

A topic devoted to the manufacture of ethanol on Mars would seem to be in order, if that is your intention.

Google tells me the chemical formula of ethanol is C2H6O, so you will be able to input CO2 from the atmosphere and water from whatever supplies exist on Mars to make ethanol. Who would your customers be. I can think of several, but your vision is what's important here.

We appear to have no topics whose title includes the word "ethanol". We have at least one that comes close .... "Booze" created by RobertDyck.

(th)

SpaceNut · 2024-01-01 13:17:46

We have talked about chains of carbon and hydrogen but to see a nation doing it from a coal source not American was to be posted.
Mars has out gassed of methane, and I am wondering if this is due to a source of coal and steam as suggested by making it here on earth. Ethanol is the poison version of the carbon chain just like methanol.

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#1 2015-11-06 11:07:24

Martian 'coal'

#2 2015-11-06 22:03:59

Re: Martian 'coal'

#3 2015-11-07 09:49:12

Re: Martian 'coal'

#4 2015-11-07 21:44:47

Re: Martian 'coal'

#5 2022-11-12 11:15:12

Re: Martian 'coal'

#6 2022-11-12 12:54:49

Re: Martian 'coal'

#7 2022-11-12 13:14:50

Re: Martian 'coal'

#8 2022-11-12 13:29:02

Re: Martian 'coal'

#9 2022-11-12 15:42:54

Re: Martian 'coal'

#10 2022-11-12 16:37:36

Re: Martian 'coal'

#11 2022-11-12 16:48:35

Re: Martian 'coal'

#12 2022-11-13 10:48:49

Re: Martian 'coal'

#13 2023-11-27 12:25:40

Re: Martian 'coal'

#14 2023-11-27 13:49:38

Re: Martian 'coal'

#15 2024-01-01 11:01:36

Re: Martian 'coal'

#16 2024-01-01 11:55:05

Re: Martian 'coal'

#17 2024-01-01 13:17:46

Re: Martian 'coal'

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