JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The world’s largest platinum miner, Anglo Platinum, on Monday unveiled a pioneering clean-energy fuel-cell power plant that uses coal-bed methane gas from group company Anglo Coal.
Journalists were flown to see the stationary plant at an Anglo Coal coal-bed methane gas exploration site near Lephalale, in Limpopo province.
The plant changes over automatically from being grid-connected to being standalone.
United Technologies’ UTC Power of the US, which supplied the 200-kW unit, has reportedly installed 270 of the containerised plants in various parts of the world, fuel cells being electrochemical devices that operate without combustion to deliver clean energy more efficiently than a combustion engine.
The coal-bed methane is reformed into hydrogen, producing both electricity and heat after the hydrogen comes into contact with oxygen in the air. Efficiencies of up to 83% can be achieved when use is made of both the electricity and the heat.
A rhodium catalyst is used.
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