Underground Coal Gasification From Fundamentals To Applications

Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 39 (2013) 189e214
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Progress in Energy and Combustion Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pecs
Review
Underground coal gasication: From fundamentals to applications

Abdul Waheed Bhutto a, Aqeel Ahmed Bazmi b, c, Gholamreza Zahedi b, *
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, Dawood College of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Pakistan
Process Systems Engineering Centre (PROSPECT), Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310,
Johor Bahru (JB), Malaysia
c
Biomass Conversion Research Centre (BCRC), Department of Chemical Engineering, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
b
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 4 April 2012
Accepted 10 September 2012
Available online 22 October 2012
Underground coal gasication (UCG) is a promising option for the future use of un-worked coal. UCG
permits coal to be gasied in situ within the coal seam, via a matrix of wells. The coal is ignited and air is
injected underground to sustain a re, which is essentially used to mine the coal and produce
a combustible synthetic gas which can be used for industrial heating, power generation or the manufacture of hydrogen, synthetic natural gas or diesel fuel. As compared with conventional mining and
surface gasication, UCG promises lower capital/operating costs and also has other advantages, such as
no human labor underground. In addition, UCG has the potential to be linked with carbon capture and
sequestration. The increasing demand for energy, depletion of oil, and gas resources, and threat of global
climate change have lead to growing interest in UCG throughout the world. The potential for UCG to
access low grade, inaccessible coal resources and convert them commercially and competitively into
syngas is enormous, with potential applications in power, fuel, and chemical production. This article
reviews the literature on UCG and research contributions are reported UCG with main emphasis given to
the chemical and physical characteristic of feedstock, process chemistry, gasier designs, and operating
conditions. This is done to provide a general background and allow the reader to understand the
inuence of operating variables on UCG. Thermodynamic studies of UCG with emphasis on gasier
operation optimization based on thermodynamics, biomass gasication reaction engineering and
particularly recently developed kinetic models, advantages and the technical challenges for UCG, and
nally, the future prospects for UCG technology are also reviewed.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Underground coal gasication
UCG kinetics
Gasier operation
Post-burn coal processing
Coal drilling
Contents
1.
2.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190
Underground coal gasification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193
2.1.
UCG for synthetic fuel production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
2.2.
Process overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
2.2.1.
Chemical processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
2.2.2.
Physical process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
2.2.3.
Effect of coal reactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
2.2.4.
Gasifying agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
2.2.5.
Effect of pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
2.2.6.
Effect of heat loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
2.2.7.
Effect of temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
2.2.8.
Cavity growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
2.2.9.
Gas diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
2.2.10.
Velocity of combustion front . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
2.2.11.
Compositions of syngas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
2.2.12.
Optimization of UGC operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 60 7 553583; fax: 60 7 5566177.

E-mail addresses: grzahedi@cheme.utm.my, grzahedi@yahoo.com (G. Zahedi).
0360-1285/$ e see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pecs.2012.09.004
190
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
A.W. Bhutto et al. / Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 39 (2013) 189e214
Thermodynamics of UCG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201

3.1.
Thermodynamic equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
3.2.
Carbon-oxygen steam equilibrium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
3.3.
Cold gas efficiency (hcg) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Kinetic studies of UCG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
4.1.
Single First Order Reaction model (SFORM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
4.2.
Distributed activation energy model (DAEM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
4.3.
Reactions of formation of selected gas products in coal pyrolysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
4.4.
Order of reaction and activation energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
4.5.
Rate controlling step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
4.6.
Chemical reaction rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Challenges for UCG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
5.1.
Suitable site selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
5.2.
Technical challenges for UCG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
5.2.1.
The major issues in the use of UCG technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
5.2.2.
Exploration of the UCG site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
5.2.3.
Choice of a suitable drilling technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
5.2.4.
Environment and safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Advantages of underground coal gasification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
6.1.
Advantages of underground coal gasification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
6.2.
UGC challenge and promises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
6.3.
UCG-CCS concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
6.4.
Post-burn processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
6.5.
Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Conclusions and future prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .212
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
1. Introduction
Coal, a fossil fuel created from the remains of plants that lived
and died about 100e400 million years ago when parts of the Earth
were covered with huge swampy forests is classied as a nonrenewable energy source because it takes millions of years to form.
Coal has been used as a source of energy for nearly 3000 years.
Although mined in Europe as early as the 13th century, it was not
a highly desirable fuel because of its toxic combustion products.
Coal did not become an important source of fuel until the beginning
of the Industrial Revolution about 300 years later.
The coal industrys largest environmental challenge is removing
organic sulfur, a substance that is chemically bound to coal.
Traditional methods of burning coal produce emissions that can
reduce air and water quality. Clean coal technologies remove sulfur
and nitrogen oxides before, during, and after coal is burned, or
convert coal to a gas or liquid fuel. Fluidized Bed Combustion is
a clean coal technology which keeps both sulfur and nitrogen
oxides in check. Coal Gasication is another clean coal technology
bypasses the conventional coal burning process altogether by
converting coal into a gas. This method removes sulfur, nitrogen
compounds and particulates, before the fuel is burned, making it as
clean as natural gas. Coal was rst used in gas production during
the late 18th century. Early production was used primarily for
lighting, but as gasication techniques improved, applications grew
wider. By the 19th century the conversion of coal to gas was a wellestablished commercial process.
Globally, coal will still remain an indispensable source of
chemical feedstock and energy for a long period of time. New and
improved processes for its efcient and environmentally acceptable
use will be a steady challenge for coming generations of coal
scientists and for society to support the research required [1].
World energy policy is gripped by a fallacy d the idea that coal
is destined to stay cheap for decades to come. This assumption
supports investment in clean-coal technology and trumps serious
efforts to increase energy conservation and develop alternative
energy sources. Underground coal gasication (UCG) is a promising
option for the future use of un-worked coal. UCG d may eventually
make marginal coal reserves accessible, but it will take time and
substantial investment to be commercialized on a large-scale [2].
Most current technologies of coal gasication such as entrained
ow, uidized bed, and moving bed use a surface reactor for gasication. The main differences between these technologies relate to
the gas ow conguration, coal particle size, ash handling, and
process conditions [3]. An alternative for surface gasier is an
underground coal gasier. UCG is a is a combination of mining,
exploitation and gasication that eliminates the need for mining
and can be used in deep or steeply dipping, unmineable coal seam
.UCG is an in situ technique to recover the fuel or feedstock value of
coal that is not economically available through conventional
recovery technologies. It has been regarded to be an important way
to utilize low-rank and unmineable coals. The international experiences in the modeling and the experimental tests of underground
coal gasication (UCG) show that UCG process offers an attractive
option of utilizing unmineable coal [4e21]. Probably the strongest
appeal of underground coal gasication at present is its potential
value in exploiting marginal coal reserves that otherwise would
remain unrecoverable [22].
Coal reserves signicantly exceed those of oil and gas. Worlds
coal distribution on land is shown in Fig. 1. When coal resource
totals is considered (including coal which it is uneconomic to
mine), it dominates the fossil fuel picture. Estimates of total world
coal resource (including unmineable coal) are usually stated in
trillions of tons rather than billions. Recent estimates of the total
remaining coal resource in the world quote a gure of 18 trillion
tons [23].
Today, less than one sixth of the worlds coal is economically
accessible. The chances of countries around the world choosing not
to use this coal resource are very low indeed but unless cleaner and
cheaper ways can be found to convert coal to gas or liquid fuels, coal
is unlikely to become an acceptable replacement for dwindling and
uncertain supplies of oil and natural gas. Underground coal gasication (UCG), taken on its own, offers the prospect of increasing the
worlds usable coal reserves by a factor of at least three. Fortunately,
191
Fig. 1. Worlds coal distribution black areas on land: Map excludes Antarctica, which contains large coal deposits but is not usable by international convention [24].
potential sites for UCG operations correspond to locations where

sites are plentiful for sequestering CO2 in geologic formations
underground. UCG also enhances the storage capacity of the coal
seam itself to store injected CO2. The generated gas, called syngas,
would be taken from the ground and the by-products separated
out. The CO2 would then be returned downhole nearby.
The purpose of underground gasication of coal, regardless of
method used, is to obtain the energy contained in the fuel for use
on the surface, without mining in the usual sense of the term.
Underground gasication can be described as (1) a process where

coal, in place, is consumed by partial combustion with air, oxygen,
steam, or any combination of these to produce a low caloric value
gas (80e300 Btu per cu ft) or (2) a complete combustion process in
which air is used to produce a gas containing carbon dioxide,
nitrogen, and considerable thermal energy [25].
UCG also lowers the capital investment by eliminating the need
for specialized coal processing (transporting and stocking) and
gasication reactors. UCG has other advantages such as increased
Fig. 2. Current world-wide status of UCG technology: Map shows underground coal gasication (UCG) sites worldwide, including planned sites and prior pilot test sites, current
international UCG activities overlaying CO2 storage potential areas. Gray areas show potential areas for geological carbon storage [23,31,32].
192
Fig. 3. Potential development of UCG: Step 1: well drilling and link establishment. Step
2: coal seam ignition and commencement of gasication and step 3: site clean-up by
ushing cavity with steam and water to remove potential contaminants [19].
work safety, no surface disposal of ash, low dust, and noise pollution. It can be operated at high pressure to increase the reaction
intensity and improve the efciency of the process. UCG is particularly advantageous for deep coal deposits and steeply dipping coal
seams since at these conditions less gas leakages to the surroundings and high pressures favor methane formation The successful
application of such a process would provide a low to medium BTU
gas (100e300BTU/SCF), depending on whether air or an oxygene
steam mixture is used [26]. Composition and heating value of the
product gas depends on the thermodynamic conditions of the
operation as well as on the composition and temperature of the
gasifying agent employed.
In order to avoid potential environmental concerns, the reactor
cavity is operated at less than hydrostatic pressure, which brings
water into the gasication reactor in situ. As such, successful UCG
operation relies on the natural permeability of the coal seam to
transmit gases to and from the combustion zone, or on enhanced
permeability created through reversed combustion, an in-seam
channel, or hydro-fracturing [27].
The rst recorded proposal for UCG was by Siemens. Sir William
Siemens, a German scientist, was credited with rst suggesting
underground coal gasication in 1868 [28], followed by
Mendeleyev 20 years later. No further work was done until the

1930s, when an experimental station was started in the Donetsk
coaleld in the then Soviet Union, to be followed by commercial
installations in 1940 [29]. John et al. [25] has given excellent
bibliography of the literature on UCG between 1945 and 60.
Underground gasication continued at a number of locations in the
Soviet Union until the late 1970s, with production of some
25,000 million Nm3 of gas from around 6.6 million tons of coal.
Some of the well-documented UCG operations are those at AngrenUzbekistan, Queensland-Australia, Alberta-Canada, Walanchabi
City-China, Majuba-South Aferica.
A commercial-scale UCG plant is still being operated in Angren,
Uzbekistan, where gas of an average heating value of 3.1e3.5 kJ/m3
is produced in an air-blown gasication process. The UCG gas
produced is fed into a power station which is situated adjacent to
the Yerostigaz operation in Angren. Yerostigaz has produced this
gas to generate power at the 400 MW power station at Angren.
Operators drill wells to inject air or oxygen that drives combustion
and gasication in situ, and to produce the coal gas to surface for
further processing, transport, or utilization. The most advanced
UCG operation is at Chinchilla in Queensland, Australia, where the
operator claims to be generating electricity from UCG product gas
at a highly competitive cost (1.5 US cents per kWh).
In October 2008, Carbon Energy successfully produced syngas
from its unique UCG module based on the parallel controlled
retractable injection point (CRIP) method. The trial, which ran for
100 days, reached coal gasication rates of around 150 tons per day
and produced a high-quality syngas. Since then, Carbon Energy has
installed two more modules and constructed a 5-MW electric
power plant to be fed with syngas from Module 2. Module 1 is
being carefully decommissioned. Plans for scaling up to 25 MW of
electricity generation are under way, and a second project in
Queensland, known as the Blue Gum Energy Park, is also in the
early stages of planning.
Swan Hills Synfuels recently produced syngas from its pilot
project in Alberta, Canada. This project is the deepest UCG pilot
ever undertaken, at a depth of 1400 m, and is using the linear
controlled retractable injection point method. The ENN Group Co.
Ltd. (a subsidiary of the Xinao company) produced syngas from
a pilot project in Walanchabi City, Inner Mongolia, China, for 26
months, gasifying more than 100,000 tons of coal. Although not
much information has been made available about this project, it is
known that there were initially seven injection and production
wells, which were rst red in October 2007 using air. ENN is now
in its fourth year of operation at the plant.
The Majuba UCG project has been producing syngas since
January 2007 and began delivering UCG syngas to core with coal
at the Majuba Power Station in late 2010. The project contributes
about 3 MW to the overall output of 650 MW from the electric
power station using the linked vertical well method. This project is
now the longest running UCG trial in the western world. Plans are
in place to expand the facilities to 1200 MWe output, with 30% of
the plants fuel provided by syngas.
There have been over 50 UCG tests or pilot operations worldwide. Trials were carried out at depths in excess of 500 m by
a European consortium (UK, Spain and Belgium) between 1992 and
1998 at Teruel in Spain. Table 1 summarizes the history of the UCG
and Fig. 2 illustrates the current world-wide status of the
technology.
The potential for UCG to access low grade, inaccessible coal
resources and convert them commercially and, competitively into
syngas is enormous, with potential applications in power, fuel, and
chemical production. UCG research and development have been
conducted in several countries, including long-term commercial
operation of several UCG plants in the former Soviet Union.
193
Table 1
History of the UCG [30].
Test site
Country
Year
Coal type
Seam thickness (m)
Seam depth (m)
Dipa (degrees)
Coal gasied (t)
Syngas cv (mj/m3)
Lisichansk
Lisichansk
Gorlovka
Podmoskova
Bois-la-Dame
Newman Spinney
Yuzhno-Abinsk
Angren
Hanna 1
Hanna 2
Hoe Creek 1
Hanna 3
Hoe Creek 2A
Hoe Creek 2B
Hanna 4
Hoe Creek 3A
Hoe Creek 3B
Pricetown
Rawlins 1A
Rawlins 1B
Rawlins 2
Brauy-en-Artois
Thulin
Centralia Tono A
Centralia Tono B
Haute-Duele
Thulin
Rocky Mountain 1A
Rocky Mountain 1B
El Tremedal
Russia
Ukraine
Russia
Russia
Belgium
UK
Russia
Uzbekistan
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
USA
France
Belgium
USA
USA
France
Belgium
USA
USA
Spain
1934e36
1943e63
1935e41
1940e62
1948
1949e59
1955e89
1965enow
73e74
75e76
1976
1977
1977
1977
77e79
1979
1979
1979
1979
1979
1979
1981
1982e84
84e85
84e85
1985e86
1986e87
87e88
87e88
1997
Bit
Bit
N/A
SBB
A
SBB
Bit
SBB
HVC
HVC
HVC
HVC
HVC
HVC
HVC
HVC
HVC
Bit
SBB
SBB
SBB
A
SA
SBB
SBB
A
SA
SBB
SBB
SBB
0.75
0.4
1.9
2
1
1
2-Sep
4
9.1
9.1
7.5
9.1
7.5
7.5
9.1
7.5
7.5
1.8
18
18
18
1200
860
6
6
2
6
7
7
2
24
400
40
40
N/A
75
138
110
120
84
100
84
100
100
100
100
100
270
105
105
130e180
N/A
N/A
75
75
880
860
110
110
600
N/A
0
N/A
0
N/A
N/A
60
N/A
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
63
63
63
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
180
2 mt
Over 10 mt
3130
7580
112
2370
1820
60
4700
290
3190
350
1330
169
7760
3e4
3.2
6e10
6 with O2
N/A
2.6
9e12.1
3.6
5.3
3.6
4.1
3.4
9.0
4.1
3.9
6.9
6.1
5.6
8.1
11.8
14
14
190
390
9.7
8.4
0
0
157
11200
4440
9.5
8.8
HVC High Vol Bit, Bit Bituminous, SBB Sub Bituminous, SA Semi-anthracite, A Anthracite.
a
Dip is the maximum angle between the inclined plane and the horizontal plane. Dip is always perpendicular to strike, and has both a compass direction and an angle.
Inclinometer is used to measure the amount of dip in degrees (a plane lying at along the horizontal as zero dip).
Information on UCG technology, however, is limited and there is

a lack of compact review articles in this area [33]. Most of the
current available literature on UCG emphasizes on its geological
implications, environmental concerns and numerical analysis,
modeling and simulation based on laboratory or pilot scale studies.
However, and in spite of the signicance of all this, there is no
comprehensive review on UCG process description with emphasis
on its thermodynamic and kinetic studies. We believe that, in all
these respects, this is a timely contribution. We anticipate that this
review will promote research and development efforts, scale-up
of the gasication process, and large-scale implementation of
UCG in future.
In this article, research contributions are reported according to
the following sections:
In Section 2, we reviewed the UCG with main emphasis given
to the chemical and physical characteristic of feedstock,
process chemistry, gasier designs, and operating conditions.
This is done to provide a general background and allow the
reader to understand the inuence of operating variables on
UCG.
In Section 3, we discussed thermodynamic studies of UCG with
emphasis on gasier operation optimization based on
thermodynamics.
In Section 4, we reviewed coal gasication reaction engineering and particularly we reviewed the recently developed
kinetic models.
Section 5 has discussed challenges for UCG and the proposed
approach which has been implemented to overcome the
existing challenges.
Section 6 summarized the advantages and limitations of UCG
and in Section 7, we provide concluding remarks and future
prospects for UCG technology.
2. Underground coal gasication

2.1. UCG for synthetic fuel production
UCG permits coal to be gasied in situ within the coal seam, via
a matrix of wells. The coal is ignited and air is injected underground
to sustain a re, which is essentially used to produce and transport
combustible synthetic gas to surface. This synthetic gas can be used
for industrial heating, power generation or the manufacture of
hydrogen, synthetic natural gas or other fuels. As compared with
conventional mining and surface gasication, UCG promises lower
capital/operating costs and also has other advantages, such as no
human labor underground for coal mining. In addition, UCG has the
potential to be linked with carbon capture and sequestration [34].
The increasing demand for energy, depletion of oil and gas
resources, and threat of global climate change have led to growing
interest in UCG throughout the world.
The primary components of UCG syngas are H2, CO, CO2, CH4,
and H2S. The pressures and temperatures of produced gas are
similar, at 30e50 bars for a 300e500 m deep seam, and 500e
800 C outlet temperatures for sub-bituminous coals and up to
1000 C for bituminous coals. The product gas requires cleaning
once it has reached the surface, either to meet the specication for
input into a gas turbine (for electricity generation), or to be of
sufcient purity for use as a chemical feedstock for conversion to
synthetic fuels.
2.2. Process overview
UCG has been approached in many different ways. The old
technique to gasify the coal in situ uses two-vertically drilled wells
as the Injection and Production wells. The procedure consists of
three steps as shown in Fig. 3. In the rst step an injection and
194
production well are drilled from the surface to the coal seam and
highly permeable path within the coal seams are established
between these two well. Prior to the gasication step a linkage path
is created between injector and producer. Several techniques can be
used for linking the wells, including the Reverse Combustion
Linking (RCL), Forward Combustion Linking (FCL), hydro-fracking,
electro-linking, explosive and in-seam linking. Other techniques
for the in situ gasication include CRIPs, long and large tunnel
gasication, and two-stage UCG [35e37].
The RCL is a method of linking which includes injection of an
oxidant into one well and ignition of coal in the other so that
combustion propagates toward the source of oxidant as shown in
Fig. 4(a).
In the course of the FCL coal is ignited in the injection well, and
the re propagates toward the production well as shown in
Fig. 4(b). During forward gasication, the ame working face
gradually moves to the outlet, making the dry distillation zone
shorter and shorter. At the time when forward gasication is nearly
complete, the reduction zone also becomes shorter [38].
Flow of oxidant into the injection well is maintained until the
re reaches the bottom of the injection well in the RCL or that of the
production well in the FCL. This outcome is accompanied by
a signicant drop in the injection pressure indicating creation of
a low hydraulic resistance link between the wells, which establishes a low hydraulic resistance path between the two wells.
CRIP technique is suitable for thin, deep coal seams, replaces the
vertical injector by a horizontal injector [39]. During the gasication process, the burning zone grows in the upstream direction, in
contrast to the gas ow in the horizontal direction. This occurs by
cutting off or perforating the injection linear at successive new
upstream locations. The CRIP technique produces higher quality
gas, results in lower heat loss than the two-vertical well conguration, and improves the overall efciency of the UCG process [40].
Once a successful link has been established the second step is
ignited. The gasication step starts with ignition of the coal and the
injection of air or air enriched with oxygen. Both permeable bed
gasication and natural convection driven surface gasication will
Fig. 4. Schematic views of the reverse and forward combustion linking in UCG. (a)
Reverse combustion linking. (b) Forward combustion linking [36].
occur. When the gas quality deteriorates the injection well is burnt
to allow injection further upstream.
Gasication occurs when a mixture of air or oxygen and steam is
forced into the coal seam through injection well and react chemically with the coal, generating a synthesis gas, which is recovered
through product well. At the surface the raw product gas is cleaned
for industrial uses [20].
As gasication proceeds, an underground cavity is formed.
Water from the surrounding strata will enter the cavity and
participate in the gasication process leading to a drop in the local
water table. At some point, the coal in the vicinity of the injection
well will be exhausted and steps one and two will be repeated to
access fresh coal to sustain gas production. In the commercial
operations several underground gasiers will be operated simultaneously. Once the gasication operations in a section of coal seam
have nished, the third step is to return environment back to its
original state. This is achieved by ushing the cavities with steam
and/or water to remove pollutants from cal seams to prevent them
from diffusing into surrounding water aquifers. Over the time, the
water table will return to a level close to that existing prior to the
start of gasication [20]. The composition of the product gas from
UCG can very substantially depending on the injected oxidant used,
operating pressure and mass and energy balance of the underground reactor.
CRIP technique, is suitable for thin, deep coal seams, replaces the
vertical injector by a horizontal injector [39]. The CRIP method
requires two horizontal wells drilled along a coal seam. One is near
the top of the seam and the other near the bottom. The bottom
(injection) well is lined with metal pipe. The upper well is the
production well. As pyrolysis proceeds, the burn cavity moves
toward the base of the wells, progressively exposing more and
more of the injection pipe. At an appropriate time, the pipe is
melted or burned off and a new period of pyrolysis begins. In effect,
the old problems of well plugging are circumvented by simply
starting a new burn periodically along the horizontal wells [41]. The
CRIP method was rst tried successfully in early 1982 with a threeday trial, gasifying a 40-ton cavity. The injection pipe was then
burned off and a second 10-ton cavity started. The original cavity
cooled to 500 C, and the second achieved the typical operating
temperature of 1000 C. The average heating values of the product
gases were between 265 and 277 Btu per standard cubic foot.
Burning is started by pyrophoric silane and propane gases. The
silane ignites upon encountering the oxygen in the burn cavity and
burns long enough to subsequently ignite the propane, which is
injected into the well. The propane actually ignites the coal in the
cavity. At a suitable time, the propane is shut off and the pyrolysis
sustains itself. This method has proved reliable since its adoption.
Burning can also be started by passing LPG through the injection
well for a short period of time (3e5 min) to initiate the combustion.
An electric spark is generated for ignition of the liqueed petroleum gas (LPG) in the channel of the coal block near the mouth of
the injection well. Once coal is ignited, the LPG supply is stopped
and oxygen is continuously passed through the channel created in
the coal block until the completion of the experiment [42].
CRIP technique uses a combination of conventional and directional drilling to drill the process wells. First, the vertically-drilled
Production Well is drilled until it intersects the coal seam. Then
the vertical section of the Injection Well is drilled to a predetermined depth, after which directional drilling is used to
deviate the hole and drill along the coal seam until it intersects the
Production Well. This technique enables the injection point (i.e. the
end of the coiled tubing) to be retracted back along the coal seam,
which is of benet because it allows for fresh coal to be accessed
each time the syngas quality drops as a result of cavity maturation.
Retraction of the injection point along the coal seam is known as
a CRIP maneuver, and between 10 and 20 such maneuvers are expected during the course of a modules lifetime. Directional drilling
is a proven technology in the oil and gas industry.
The in-seam drilling of coal seams has been part of coal
exploitation since at least the 1950s. Underground steering of
boreholes made its commercial entrance in the oil and gas industry
around 1990, when operators established the benets of lateral
drilling for extending the life of wells and xed drilling platforms
and for reaching inaccessible locations. Nowadays directional
drilling has become common for coal bed methane (CBM) and
enhanced CBM applications; there are specialist drilling companies
around who supply services to CBM operators. The focus to-date
has been on reducing costs. UCG has a tighter requirement on
accuracy. The ability of directional drilling to meet these requirements at an affordable cost is still under review [37]. The CRIP
technique produces higher quality gas, results in lower heat loss
than the two-vertical well conguration, and improves the overall
efciency of the UCG process [40].
Two-stage UCG is a technique of supplying air and steam
cyclically [10,43]. In the rst stage, air is supplied to make the coal
burn and store heat to produce air gas; in the second stage, steam is
supplied to produce water gas. Only if sufcient heat is stored in the
rst stage can the decomposition reactions in the second stage run
smoothly and the water gas with high heating value be ensured.
Meanwhile, the degree of the coal layer decomposition and the
production volume of the gas are totally determined by the
temperature distribution in the coal layers [44].
During in situ coal gasication remote sensing technique
may be used for mapping underground fracture systems,
locating tunnels or water-bearing strata and mapping burn
fronts [45].
2.2.1. Chemical processes
The study considers the quasi-steady burning of a carbon
particle which undergoes gasication at its surface by chemical
reactions, followed by a homogeneous reaction in the gas phase.
The main chemical processes occurring during coal gasication are
drying, pyrolysis, combustion and gasication of the solid hydrocarbon. These processes occur in all methods of coal gasication,
whether conducted in surface gasiers or in situ. From the chemical
and thermodynamic point of view, the UCG process runs analogically to gasication in the surface reactors [46]. The most important
chemical reactions taking place during underground coal gasication are listed in Table 2.
Chemical reactions (1)e(4) take place on the wall plane of the
coal seams (heterogeneous reactions), while (6) and (7) reactions
occur at the gaseous stage (homogeneous reactions).
In addition to these listed, reactions involving nitrogen and
sulfur are also important. The nal product gas consists of
hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and
nitrogen. Composition and heating value of the product gas
depends on the thermodynamic conditions of the operation as well
as on the composition and temperature of the gasifying agent
employed [46].
During in situ combustion of coal different processes of vaporization (drying), pyrolysis, and combustion and gasication of char
take place collectively. The UCG process has a zonal character and
the main gasication reactions occur both in the solid and the
gaseous phases as well as on their boundaries. Qualitative
description of phenomena at the UCG cavity wall is explained
in Fig. 5.
In the solid phase mainly the pyrolysis and the drying processes
take place. Along with the migration of the gaseous product of the
thermal decomposition through the pores and slots of the solid
phase, various homo- and heterogenic reactions occur. The rates of
195
Table 2
Chemical reactions taking place during underground coal gasication.
Reaction equation
Reaction
rate (Ri)
DHo298
(MJ/kmol)
Equation
number
C O2 /CO2
R1
393.8
(1)
C CO2 /2CO2
R2
162.4
(2)
C H2 O/H2 CO
R3
131.4
(3)
C 2H2 /CH4
R4
74.9
(4)
1
O /CO2
2 2
1
H2 O2 /H2 O
2
CO H2 O/CO H2
R5
285.1
(5)
CO
R6
0.242
(6)
R7
0.041
(7)
these processes depend mostly on the temperature. On the phase

boundary in the gasication channel heterogenic reactions take
place. Their rates are determined by the diffusion and the accessible
reaction area. The major products of the reaction of oxygen with
carbon in the gasication area (oxidation zone) are carbon dioxide
and carbon monoxide [46].
Based on the differences in major chemical reactions, the
temperature, and the gas compositions, the gasication channel
can be divided into three zones: oxidization zone, reduction zone
and dry distillation zone as shown in Fig. 6 [21]. In the oxidization
zone, the multi-phase chemical reactions between oxygen contained in the gasication agent and the carbon in the coal seam
occur, producing heat and making the coal seam very-hot. The
coal seams become incandescent with temperature ranging
from 900 C to 1450 C [47]. Inherent water plays a role in coal
oxidation, affecting oxygen transport within coal pores and
participating in the chemical reactions during the oxidation
process. Details of chemical reactions involving water have not yet
been elucidated [48].
With the O2 burning up gradually, the air stream gets into the
reduction zone. In the reduction zone H2O(g) and CO2 are
reduced to H2 and CO under the effect of high temperature,
when they meet with the incandescent coal seams. The
temperature ranges from 600 C to 1000 C, and the length is
1.5e2 times that of the oxidation zone with its pressure being
0.01e0.2 MPa [49]. Additionally, under the catalytic action of
coal ash and metallic oxides, a certain methanation reaction
occurs [Eq. (4)]. The above endothermic reactions cause the
temperature at the reduction zone to drop until it is low enough
to terminate the reduction reactions.
After the endothermic reactions in the reduction zone, the
gas current temperature drops, and then it begins to ow into
the destructive distillation and dry zone (200 Ce600 C).
The main physical changes for coal with high water content
are dewatering and cracking, as well as absorption and
contraction of the coal, when the temperature is below 100 C.
When the temperature is not higher than 300 C, only small
amounts of parafn hydrocarbon, water, and CO2 are separated
out. Over 300 C, the slow chemical changes take place,
accompanied with a light polymerization and depolymerization.
In the meantime, appropriate amounts of volatile and oil-like
liquid are separated out, which take on a gelatinous state
afterward. When the temperature of the coal seam rises to
350 Ce550 C, a large proportion of tar oil is separated out
(500 C at its peak) and a certain amount of combustible gas is
yielded. The hydrocarbon gas is given out when the temperature
stands at 450 Ce500 C. As the temperature of the coal seam
continues to rise until it is over 550 C, semi-coke remains begin
to solidify and contract, accompanied with the yield of H2, CO2,
and CH4 [47,50].
196
Fig. 5. Qualitative description of phenomena at the UCG cavity wall [16,19].
The overall UCG process is strongly exothermic, and temperatures in the burn zone are likely to occasionally exceed 900 C. Even
after cooling (through conductive heat loss to surrounding strata
and convective heat loss to native groundwater), syngas typically
ows through production wells at temperatures between 200 C
and 400 C. Around the burn zone, the high buoyancy of hot syngas
relative to groundwater will tend to lead to large pores getting
invaded with bubbles of syngas, which will heat the groundwater
and turn it into steam. A dynamic interface between steam and hot
groundwater will develop around the UCG burn zone, in which
steam will mix with the syngas [23].
Passing through these three reaction zones, the gas with the
main combustible compositions of CO, H2 and CH4 is formed, whose
proportion of contents varies from one gasication agent and air
injection method to another. These three zones move toward the
outlet along the direction of the air ow, which, in turn, ensures the
continuous run of the gasication reactions [21].
Figs. 6 and 7 illustrate different chemical regions of gasication
of coal in situ. In the drying zone, surface water in the wet coal is
vaporized at temperatures above the saturation temperature of
seam water at a specied pressure, which makes the coal more
porous. The dried coal undergoes the pyrolysis process upon more
heating in the next phase. During pyrolysis, coal loses about 40e
50% of its dry weight as low molecular weight gases, chemical
Fig. 6. Division of gasication channel into three zones: oxidization zone, reduction
zone and dry distillation zone [21].
water, light hydrocarbons and heavy tars, and after evolving the
volatile matters, a more permeable solid substance called char will
be combusted and gasied by the injected oxidant agents and
exhausted gases from the previous steps [51,52]. The rates of the
gaseous phase reactions are determined mostly by the temperature
and concentration of the particular gaseous compounds. Development of these reactions is frequently supported by the catalytic
inuence of some chemical compounds, e.g. iron oxides.
2.2.2. Physical process
In the process of underground coal gasication (UCG), the gas
movement not only inuences the concentration distribution and
movement of uid in the burning zone directly, but also restricts
the diffusion of the gasication agent in the whole gasier.
Fig. 7. Thermal wave propagation through coal seam during in situ gasication which
demonstrates the different regions [3].
Therefore, it eventually determines the rate of chemical reaction

between gas and solid, and the process of burning and gasication.
Evidently, Lanhe 2003 [15] suggested the study of moving patterns
of uid in the gasier should precede the study of the process of
chemical reaction, the moving patterns of agents, and the distribution regularity of temperature elds near the ame working
face.
In the process of underground coal gasication, under the effect
of high temperature, that a temperature eld forms in the coal layer
to be gasied within the coal and rock mass, which makes the
coal and rock layersdoriginally full of stratication, joints, and
fracturesdsoften, melt, cement, and solidify. Accordingly, the
internal molecular structure is rearranged and reorganized, which
leads to qualitative changes of organizational structure and
morphological appearance. Hence, obvious changes take place in
the physicomechanical properties of the coal and rock mass.
In the process of underground coal gasication, a high
temperature eld comes into being in the coal body under the high
temperature, which makes the coal seam, full of layers and joints
and interstices, soften, melt, glue, and solidify. Under the high
temperature, the internal molecular structure reorganizes, which
completely changes the coal seams surface morphology. Hence,
dramatic changes take place in the physical and mechanical properties of the coal body. As a result, its corresponding physical and
mechanical properties are no longer constants, but functions of
temperature. The differences in the heat expansion coefcient
among coal grains and anisotropy generate new cracks, whose
extension leads to the connected net structure. Thus, all these
improve the connectivity of the pore passageway and increase the
seepage pressure of the dry distillation gas [53].
Research indicates that, under the non-isothermal condition,
the densities of the solid media and pore water are greatly affected
by the temperature and pressure [49]. However, the small deformation of the solid skeleton still produces a certain effect on the
distribution of the temperature eld and seepage of underground
water in the gasication panel. Therefore, the deformation of
the solid particle is not negligible and can be regarded as
compressible [9].
The coal rock is extended and deformed by the pore uid
pressure. The uid inside the pores affects the cracks inside the
skeleton of the coal rock and the pores opening and closing;
second, the relation between the stress and strain of the coal rock is
changed by the uid in the pores, which in turn changes the elastic
modulus and compressive strength of the coal rock [54e56]. The
changes in the temperature eld of the coal seam are due mainly to
the ame working face. When the temperature in the coal seam
rises, the desorption rate of the dry distillation gas in the coal seam
accelerates. The free dry distillation gas content in the coal
increases. The mass of the dry distillation gas which participates in
the seepage increases too. On the other hand, with the rise of the
temperature, the amount of absorbed dry distillation gas in the coal
seam drops.
2.2.2.1. Operating conditions. The investigation by Perkins and
Sahajwalla [18] has found that the operating conditions that have
the greatest impact on cavity growth rate are temperature, water
inux, pressure, and gas composition in underground coal gasication. In this section, the effect of operating conditions and coal
properties, namely, coal reactivity, operating pressure, heat loss,
and the type of oxidant used are investigated [16]. Lanhe [13]
while establishing the mathematical models on the underground coal gasication in steep coal seams according to their
storage conditions and features of gas production process
concludes that numerical simulation on the temperature eld,
concentration eld and pressure eld is reasonable in the
197
underground gasication of steep coal seams on the experimental

condition.
2.2.2.2. The thickness of coal layers. UCG is inuenced by several
natural factors as described in Table 3. Most UCG operations were
carried out in more gas permeable conditions of brown coal beds
and younger formations of hard coals. Generally, these deposits
occurred at shallower depths, down to 300 m, and ignited relatively
easily. Strongly swelling and coking coals have the tendency to
block gas ow through the coal bed, thus hindering the course of
the reaction. The gasication of beds 1 m thick or more improves
economics [57]. Beds that are thinner than 0.5 m are not considered
suitable for UCG.
In the process of UCG, the burning area and gas are not only
cooled down through heat exchange but a part of the heat is also
lost into the coal seam and surrounding rocks (oor, roof), thus
having an adverse effect on the stability of the underground gasication process. Eliot [58] suggested that when the thickness of
coal seam is smaller than 2 m, the cooling action with a dramatic
change for surrounding rocks affects the heat value of coal gas
considerably. As for comparatively thin coal seam, enhancing the
blowing velocity or oxygen-enriched blowing can improve the
heating value of gas. In the former Soviet Union, Lischansk underground gasication station adopted oxygen-enriched blowing in
the coal seam, for which the thickness is less than 2 m [58]. When
the thickness of coal layers is decreased or the intake rate of water
is increased, the CO2 content in the gas will rise [58,59].
2.2.3. Effect of coal reactivity
The chemical reactivity of the coal is potentially very important
for UCG. The reported intrinsic reactivities of low rank coals differ
by up to 4 orders of magnitude when extrapolated to typical gasier
operating temperatures [18]. The coal intrinsic reactivity has a big
impact on the distributions in the gasier and on the nal product
gas. In particular, high reactivity favors the production of methane
via the char-H2 reaction. Because this reaction is exothermic, the
increased reactivity for this reaction can lead to big changes in the
nal product gas caloric value.
2.2.4. Gasifying agents
Gasication under different atmospheres such as air, steam,
steam-oxygen, and carbon dioxide has been reported in the literature. In general, the gasier atmosphere determines the caloric
Table 3
Classication criteria for UCG.
Criterion
Characteristics/remarks
Coal type
Any
Physicochemical properties of coal Recommended: high content of volatile
matter, low agglomerating capacity
or its lack, ash content < 50% by weight
Occurrence depth
Protability criterion
Bed thickness
More than 1 m
Angle of inclination of coal bed
Any
Type and tightness of rock mass
Recommended: rmness and tightness
of rock mass, thickness and lithology
of rock massdoverburden in slightly
permeable layers (clays, silts, shale clays)
Hydrogeological conditions
Recommended: lack of ssures, faults,
aquiferous layers, water reservoirs causing
water inow
Deposit tectonics
Recommended homogeneity of deposit
(lack of ssure, faults)
Quantity of resources
Protability criterion
Methane presence in the bed
Causes gas hazard
Conditions of infrastructure
Recommended lack of building development
198
value of the syngas produced. When one uses air as the gasifying
agent, a syngas with low heating value is obtained. This is mainly
due to the syngas dilution by the nitrogen contained in air.
However, if one uses steam or a combination of steam and oxygen,
a syngas with a medium caloric value is produced. Adding steam
changes carbon-oxygen system balance to carbon-oxygen-steam
system balance in the combustion process. Oxygen-steam gasication not only utilizes the surplus heat to improve the energy
efciency of the process, but also increases the gas production
volume per ton of coal and lowers the oxygen consumption volume
per ton of coal. The changing relationships between gas compositions and steam/oxygen ratios are shown in Fig. 8 [60].
The experiment results show that pure-oxygen underground
coal gasication, the water in the coal seams, or the leaching water
on the roof can be used to produce water gas. However, because
water evaporation consumes heat, and it is impossible to control
steam volume, gas compositions often present the wide uctuations. Therefore, it is required to adjust the oxygen supplying
volume so as to keep the stable proceeding of gasication process.
From Fig. 8, it can be seen that with the rise in the steam/oxygen
ratio, the volume of steam increases, the H2 content in the coal gas
improves, the CO content drops, and the CH4 content is heightening
a little [60].
The syngas produced has a by UCG process has low caloric
value approximately one-eighth of natural gas if air injection is
used, and double this gure if oxygen injection is used. Oxygenenriched steam forward gasication has remarkable effects on gas
compositions. Under the testing environment, in pure oxygen
gasication, the average rising rate for the temperature of the
gasied coal seams is about 2.10 C/h; in the oxygen-enriched
steam forward gasication phase, the high temperature eld
mainly concentrates around gasication gallery, and the highest
temperature in oxidation zone reaches over 1200 C [61].
The air injected into a gasication channel is at a low speed, the
ame tends to propagate toward the injection point but, if the air
ow rate increases, the cavity tends to grow in the downstream
direction. It is also known that ame propagation is faster when
oxygen is used instead of air. This behavior is also expected since
oxygen-fed ames are hotter and have higher reaction rates [62].
Saulov et al. [62] considered the limit of high temperatures, high
activation energy and a strong air ow. Under these conditions the
surface of the channel has two zones, cold and hot. The temperature is insufciently high in the cold zone to initiate reactions,
while in the hot zone any oxygen on the surface reacts instantly.
Since the activation energy is high, these zones are separated only
Fig. 8. Gas composition variation with steam/oxygen (v/v) [60].
by a very small distance. The overall reaction rate is determined by

the rate of diffusion of oxygen to the hot zone, while the oxygen
concentration on hotwalls is essentially zero. Under such conditions the turbulent ame is fully controlled by diffusion and the
injection rate has no control over the ame position. Combustion of
coal begins with devolitalization reactions at low temperatures and
can be cooled by the air stream. If these reactions play a noticeable
role in initiating the rest of the oxidation process or in the overall
energy balance, the ame position is affected by the air speed and
becomes controllable.
When other factors are the same, increases in ow rate and
operation time result inmonotonic increases in all the dimensions
of the cavity, and its volume. However, when the distance between
the injection and production wells is increased, the overall cavity
volume decreases, due to signicant reduction in the rate of growth
of the cavity in the forward direction [42].
2.2.5. Effect of pressure
Pressure is known to positively impact the performance of coal
gasication [63]. At close to atmospheric pressure, the gas caloric
value is very low because of the kinetic limitations of the gasication reactions. The changes in operating pressure can perfect the
underground gasication process to a great extent. Under the
cyclically changing pressure condition, heat loss was obviously
reduced, and heat efciency and gasication efciency and the heat
value of the product gas are increased greatly. The underground
gasier with a long channel and big cross-section could improve
the combustion and gasication conditions to a large extent,
markedly bettering the quality of the product gas and the stability
of gas production. Therefore, the large-scale underground gasier is
a condition necessarily met by the industrial production [50].
2.2.6. Effect of heat loss
Heat losses from underground coal gasication are not easy to
estimate. If the cavity remains completely in the coal seam, then
heat losses to the surrounding strata will probably be small and can
be ignored. However, as the overburden is progressively exposed,
irreversible heat loss to the surrounding will increase. It is not easy
to estimate this heat loss, because if the overburden undergoes
spalling, some of the energy used to heat it to cavity temperatures
may be recovered through preheating of the injected gas. The heat
loss mechanisms can probably be more easily investigated using
a dynamic model, in which cavity growth and heat loss are estimated as functions of time, simultaneously.
2.2.7. Effect of temperature
The process of UCG is virtually one of a self-heat balance. The
heat produced by coal combustion contributes to the establishment
for ideal temperature eld in the underground gasier and also
leads to the occurrence of gasication reactions and, eventually, the
generation of gas.
Temperature is a key factor in determining the continuous and
stable production in the process of underground coal gasication.
The patterns of variation for temperature eld in the gasier are
closely related to the nature of the gasication agent, gasication
modes, and the changes of cavity [8,49,61,64,65]. Under the pure
oxygen gasication condition, the average rising rate for the
temperature of the gasied coal seams is about 4.15 C/h; in the
oxygen-steam forward gasication phase the high temperature
eld mainly concentrates around loosening zones arising from the
thermal explosions, and the highest temperature in the oxidation
zone approaches 1300 C [6]. Compared with forward gasication,
the average temperature in the gasier for backward gasication is
lower [61]. The drop of temperature results in a decrease in CO
content while H2, CH4 and CO2 contents increases [50].
In thermal-explosion gasication method, under the pure

oxygen gasication condition, the average rising rate for the
temperature of the gasied coal seams is about 4.15 C/h; in the
oxygen-steam forward gasication phase, temperature eld mainly
concentrates around loosening zones arising from the thermal
explosions, and the highest temperature in the oxidation zone
approaches 1300 C. Test data showed that the forward oxygensteam gasication with moving points can obviously improve the
temperature conditions in the gasier. During the backward
oxygen-steam gasication, with the passage of time, the temperature of the gasication coal seams continuously increases,
approaches stable little by little, and was basically the same with
that of the forward gasication. Therefore, backward gasication
can form new temperature conditions and improve the gasication
efciency of the coal seams.
In the process of coal gasication, the changes of the temperature in the coal seam are due mainly to the heat transfer medium of
the ame working face, which corresponds to a source of heat [53].
In the process of underground coal gasication, the temperature of
coal seams around the gasication channel rises along with the
conducted heat. When the coal surface is heated by the hot gas or
the neighboring incandescent coal, its temperature distribution
expands toward the coal grains or the interior of the coal seam,
which inevitably results in the thermal effects of absorption,
desorption, and seepage movement of dry distillation gas stored in
the coal seam [49,53,66,67]. King and Ertekin [68] study shows that
under non-isothermal conditions, either the absorption-desorption
process or the permeation-expansion process is linked to the
temperature.
According to the gasication theory, the temperature above
1000 C indicates a high-speed diffusion of the water decomposition reaction constituting the fundamental process for the
production of a hydrogen rich gas in the course of the UCG steam
stage. On the other hand, the temperature drop below 700 C
slowed down the reaction speed considerably. For these reasons,
special attention was paid to keeping parameters preferable for the
production of gas with a high content of the combustible components, mainly hydrogen. The oxygen stage was therefore continued
to achieve temperatures in the range between 1100 and 1200 C.
According to the simulated calculation results [13], with the
increase of the length for the gasication channel, the heating value
of the gas improves. However, behind the reduction zone, it
increases with a smaller margin. The inuence of the temperature
eld on the heating value for the gas is noticeable. Due to the effect
of temperature, in high temperature zone, the change of the
measured value of the concentration eld for the gas compositions
is larger than that of calculated value.
The underground gasication of a large quantity of coal at
temperatures higher than 1000 C results in the typically argillaceous overburden rocks overlying the coal becoming thermally
199
affected. Most of thermal reactions in argillaceous rocks are

endothermic.
2.2.8. Cavity growth
As the coal gasication reaction precedes a cavity consisting of
coal, char, ash, rubble, and void space, is created underground. The
size of the cavity formed during UCG impacts directly the economic
and environmental factors crucial to its success. Lateral dimensions
inuence resource recovery by determining the spacing between
modules, and ultimate overall dimensions dictate the hydrological
and subsidence response of the overburden. The exact shape and
size of the gasication channel during UGC are of vital importance
for the safety and stability of the upper parts of the geological
formation [69]. Due to upward growth the cavity eventually reaches the interface between the coal seam and the overburden. From
that point onwards the development of the cavity can be strongly
inuenced by the interaction of the gas mixture with the overburden. At the start of the UCG process, typically, the exothermic
coal combustion reaction is required in order to create a sufciently
large underground cavity. In this early stage, cavity growth is
unconstrained by roof interactions. Once a stable temperature eld
is attained, steam is introduced in the cavity for gasication of the
coal in order to obtain the combustible product gases [38]. The
shape and rate of growth of this cavity will strongly impact other
important phenomena, such as reactant gas ow patterns, kinetics,
temperature proles, and so on [42]. The cavity size at any given
time depends on the rate of coal consumption and its shape
depends on the non-ideal ow patterns inside the cavity.
The cavity shape is almost symmetric around the injection well.
The cavity evolution behind the injection well (i.e. backward length)
is less than the height (in the vertical direction) and the width at the
injection point (in the transverse direction). The forward length of
the cavity (i.e. distance from injection well to the end point of the
cavity dome in the forward direction) is larger than the height and
the backward length. The convective ux of the reactant gases in the
forward direction (i.e. toward the production well) contributes to
the additional growth of the cavity in this direction. The observed
nal cavity dome that is associated with a long outow channel is
nevertheless nearly hemispherical in shape. Fig. 9 is a schematic of
the nal cavity shape, indicating the vertical, forward, backward and
transverse directions as dened here. The temperature at the cavity
roof is in the range of 950e1000 C whereas the oor temperature
varies between 650 and 700 C.
The volume of the cavity increases progressively with coal
consumption and thermomechanical spalling, if any, from the roof.
As the cavity growth is irregular in three dimensions, the ow
pattern inside the UCG cavity is highly non-ideal. The complexity
increases further because of several other processes occurring
simultaneously, such as heat transfer due to convection and radiation, spalling, water intrusion from surrounding aquifers, several
Fig. 9. Schematic diagram dening forward length, backward length, height and width of the nal cavity [42].
200
chemical reactions, and other geological aspects [57]. Several

mathematical models have been developed considering the UCG
cavity as either a packed bed or a free channel Most of the existing
models consider the UCG cavity as a rectangular or cylindrical
channel [13,16,18,19,35,70e75].
Perkins and Sahajwalla [18] predicted cavity growth rate
between 1.6 and 5 cm/h using their mathematical model which
links linear cavity growth rates to reactivity and mass transport
properties. Daggupati et al. [38] measured the linear, vertical
growth rate of 1.1 cm/h (obtained using the measured cavity
heights at different times, with the other operating conditions
being the same).
The cavity volume is directly proportional to the coal
consumption whereas the shape depends on the relative rates of
growth taking place in each of the four identied representative
directions. While the coal consumption is governed by the extent or
rate of reaction that takes place in the cavity reactor, the growth in
each individual direction is a function of the complex reactant gas
ow eld inside the cavity, and other effects such as thermo
mechanical spalling of the coal. Chen et al. [69] has developed
model to calculate the temperature distribution in the vertical
direction, and the combustion volume.
According to the physical and chemical properties of coal and
the mining geology conditions of the burial for the coal seams, two
kinds of gasication channels can be formed in the gasication
panel; namely, free channel without solid phase and the percolation patterned porous loose channel. In the longitudinal (or radial)
direction, the free channel can be divided into three zones (Fig. 10),
i.e., free owing zone, reaction zone and the coal seams zone. The
gas phases ow under the condition of wall plane of the channel
continuously exchanging heat, consuming or producing certain
compositions. At the same time, the homogeneous reactions also
occur to the gas phases. In the reaction zone, the oxidation, reduced
reactions and the pyrolysis reactions of the coal occur. The heat
transfer to the gas phases, the consumption and production of the
compositions can be regarded as the boundary conditions for the
owing of the gas phases. In the coal seams zone, part of the heat in
the reaction zone loses in the coal seams mainly in the form of the
heat conduction, making the dry and distillation of the coal seams.
Therefore, we can observe the characteristics of the gas phase
moving and establish the control equation set of the free channel
gasication process.
The cavity growth directly impact on the coal resource recovery
and energy efciency and therefore the economic feasibility. Cavity
growth is also related to other potential design considerations
including avoiding surface subsidence and groundwater
contamination.
Installation of well pairs (injection and production wells) is

costly and therefore it is desirable to gasify the maximum volume of
coal between a well pair. As gasication proceeds, a cavity is formed
which will extend until the roof collapses. This roof collapse is
important as it aids the lateral growth of the gasier. Where the
roof is strong and fails to break, or where the broken ground is
blocky and poorly consolidated, some uid reactants will by-pass
the coal and the reactor efciency could decline rapidly. In
general, as depth increases, conditions should become increasingly
favorable to gasier development with a lower risk of bypass
problems occurring, except possibly in strong roof conditions [76].
2.2.9. Gas diffusion
In the process of combustion and gasication for the coal seams
in the gasier, the major reactions are multi-phase reactions. At
each stage of multi-phase reactions, the gas state reactant spreads
to the surface of the solid state reaction by the diffusion method.
Gas diffusion mainly has two kinds: molecular diffusion and
convection (eddy) diffusion. The process of the combustion for coal
seams depends on the gas diffusion features and the dynamic
characteristics for the chemical reactions. According to the
diffusion-dynamic theory for combustion [49], under the low
temperature condition, the overall velocity of the combustion and
gasication process is mainly determined by the dynamics conditions of the chemical reactions; under the high temperature
condition, the overall velocity of combustion and gasication
process mostly depends on the speed for oxygen to diffuse from the
main current to the carbon surface and the velocity of its product
diffusing from the carbon surface to the main current. Seeing from
the circumstances of the eld test of underground gasication and
model experiment, the temperature within the gasier (the vicinity
of the ame working face, in particular) is very high.
Moreover, considering the movement conditions for the uid,
we can conclude that the convection diffusion for gas is the
signicant factor inuencing the process of the underground
gasication. Under the condition of high temperature, molecular
diffusion results from the existence of concentration gradient,
temperature gradient and pressure gradient [14].
While studying the basic features of convection diffusion for the
gas produced in underground coal gasication, on the basis of the
model experiment, through the analysis of the distribution and
patterns of variation for the uid concentration eld in the process
of the combustion and gasication of the coal seams within the
gasier, Lanhe [14] established the 3-D non-linear unstable mathematical models on the convection diffusion for oxygen. Same
study concludes that oxygen concentration is in direct proportion
to its distance from the ame working face, i.e. the longer its
Fig. 10. Gasication channels in coal seems [11].
distance, the higher the oxygen concentration; otherwise, the

lower.
In the vicinity of the combustion zone, due to the very high
temperature, the oxygen is almost exhausted in the reaction with
carbon; in loosening zone, the oxygen concentration drops to a very
low point where it almost approaches zero; in dropped out zone,
owing to the comparatively low temperature, the drop of the
oxygen concentration is slow [14].
During UCG processes, the surrounding rock acting as the
furnace walls will be affected by high temperature, and its
mechanical properties will change with the increased temperatures.
At the same time, stress and displacement will happen among rocks
due to the high temperature. Gasier instability would result in
steam interruption, and incomplete contact between gasication
agents and coal. Two mechanisms can play a role in a gas transport
through the porous stratum above the gas source, viz. diffusion and
permeation. The diffusion driving force is the composition gradient
(expressed through gas component mole fractions); the driving
force for permeation is the total pressure gradient.
It was found that the pressure increase inuences the speed of
the gas front movement more signicantly than the temperature
increase that is almost negligible. Nevertheless, for all tested
conditions CO2 appears at the distance of the few hundred meters
after some years only. The direct proportionality of the effective
permeability coefcient to the effective squared mean pore radius
was conrmed [77].
2.2.10. Velocity of combustion front
In packed bed gasication, the combustion front moves slowly
down the bed parallel to the ow of gases. Hot combustion gases
always have intimate contact with the unburned coal ahead of the
combustion zone until the re breaks through to the production
well. In channel gasication, the combustion zone moves outward
at nearly right-angles to the ow of air and combustion gases.
During UCG a thermal wave is formed which gradually travels
through the coal bed toward the gas production well. The shape of
the thermal wave tends to change very little. Since the shape of the
wave remains unchanged, the processes occurring at each
temperature level in the moving wave remain unchanged in time,
and an apparent steady-state or psuedo-steady-state condition
prevails. Under these conditions in a one-dimensional system, it is
possible to transform the mathematical model to a moving coordinate system which converts partial differential to ordinary
differential equations, a major simplication of the problem. This
transformation is [78]:
n x e vt
Where
x xed spatial coordinate
t time
v velocity of thermal wave or combustion front
n coordinate system moving with frontal velocity v
When the physical properties of coal tend to vary widely over
short distances even in a single coal seam making the task of
modeling such as UCG process very complex. Gasication of typical
9 m seam of sub-bituminous coal proceeds at a rate of 0.3e0.6m/
day consuming all the coal in a swath 12 to 15 m wide for a well
spacing of approximately 18 m.
2.2.11. Compositions of syngas
The precise proportions of the various component gases in any
particular syngas mixture are a function of quality and rank of
201
coal, seam depth, steam: oxygen ration and oxygen injection rate
and other parameter discussed in Section 2. Compositions of
syngas from a variety of coals as reported in literature reveals
component fractions in the following ranges [8,18,26,79e81].
At constant steam/oxygen ratio gas compositions remained
stable [8].
H2:11e35%; CO: 2e16%; CH4: 1e8%; CO2: 12e28%; H2S:0.03e
3.5%.
2.2.12. Optimization of UGC operation
Underground gasication cannot be controlled to the same
extent as a surface process as the coal feed cannot be processed. The
UCG process can be operated with stability and exibility, as input
ow has been shown to have a direct relationship to production
ow, with little effect on product gas quality. The power output
from the gasier could be rapidly increased or reduced by
increasing or decreasing the O2 ow rate. Although elevated depth
and pressure are not pre-requisites for a high quality gas, the
benet is in higher mass ows and hence greater efciency of
energy transmission to the surface. The energy output of a UCG
system depends on the ow rate of gaseous products and the heat
value of the gas mixture. The volume ow of the product gas is
typically four times the injection ow so the limiting factor is the
dynamic resistance of the production well. The mass ow capability
of a well is proportional to input pressure. Increasing well depth
increases the product gas density and pressure. The mass ow gain
due to pressure increase exceeds the frictional loss due to increased
bore hole length. Increasing the diameter of production tubing also
raises the limiting ow rate. Increasing the diameter of production
tubing, or the number of production wells, also raises the limiting
ow rate [76]. Information on the process conditions must
be constantly monitored and updated as the gasication
process moves forward. The ideal temperatures of above ground
coal gasication are about 1000 C, however, it may or may not be
possible to achieve these temperatures in UCG, primarily because
of the lack of control on water inux and reactant gas ow
patterns [57].
Blinderman et al. [36,82] has used intrinsic disturbed ame
equations to determine the key parameters of the RCL process.
Wang et al. [83] performed eld trial with various operational
maneuvers, such as implementing controlled moving injection
points, O2-enriched operation and variation of operational pressure to ensure the gas ow comparatively controllable and hence
improve efciency of heat and quality of the production syngas.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is evaluating
commercial computational uid dynamics (CFD) code to model
cavity gas ow and combustion in two and three dimensions.
Fig. 11 [84] show a typical cavity conguration at a mid-to-late
stage of a linked vertical well module. Nitao et al. [84] has
provided the details of models and simulators. It will be more
useful to couple the UCG process models with full scale process
simulator so that the entire process can be modeled at once, rather
than sequentially.
3. Thermodynamics of UCG
The gasication performance is controlled by both of kinetic and
thermodynamic factors. The thermodynamic properties are, by
denition, point functions of the gasication process, indicating the
conditions of a system at equilibrium, regardless of the reaction
path followed in attaining equilibrium or the time required. On the
other hand, the kinetics of a reacting system denes a particular
sequence of reaction paths, as well as the rates at which the
chemical changes take place.
202
Fig. 11. A typical cavity conguration is shown at a mid-to-late stage of a linked vertical well module. UCG involves several distinct multiphysical/chemical-process domains,
including the cavity, the wall zone containing coal, the wall zone containing rock, and the rubble zone.
3.1. Thermodynamic equilibrium

In gasication, both homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions
occur simultaneously in a complex reacting system [85]. As
underground coal gasication processes are thermally autobalanced, at given constant pressure and initial enthalpy, the
equilibrium state is reached when;
dS 0 at constantp; H
(8)
Therefore, at equilibrium, when conditions of constant pressure

and enthalpy are applied, the total entropy is at maximum. Some of
the processes are at specic pressure and temperature, exothermic
or endothermic. Constraining the unit to constant T and p, we nd
that;
dG dSg
(9)
and at equilibrium under these conditions, the following equation

must be satised;
dG 0 at constantp; H
(10)
Therefore, at equilibrium, the Gibbs free energy must reach

a minimum when the state is dened by the pressure and
temperature.
As gasication reactions are highly endothermic, heat is
supplied through the combustion reactions. Since heat is supplied
by direct carbon combustion with oxygen, the carbon-oxygen-
steam ratio is optimized such that the global reaction is thermal

self-balanced. Oxygen-carbon reactions are highly exothermic and
can supply heat to other gasication reactions or increase the
product gas temperature, while the steam-carbon gasication will
absorb the heat into chemical energy in syngas. The adiabatic
gasication temperature increases with increasing O2/C ratio and
decreasing H2O/C ratio. However, the greater oxygen consumption
in during gasication will require more energy consumption for air
separation, and thus lead to higher efciency penalty.
3.2. Carbon-oxygen steam equilibrium
Fig. 12 presents equilibrium compositions for a carbon-steam
system. It can be seen that one of the primary additions to the list of
products is methane, which increases in concentration as the
temperature decreases. Fig. 13 shows the equilibrium compositions
for the carbon-oxygen-steam system under zero enthalpy change
and the same pressure-temperature conditions as in Fig. 12. This is
more closely represents a possible combusting system than does
Fig. 12, since no heat is added or subtracted externally. The principle
difference between the systems lies in the product gas hydrogen/
carbon monoxide ratio at high temperatures. However, the
behavior of the carbon monoxide/carbon dioxide ratio vs. temperature as well as the occurrence of methane remains essentially
the same.
The carbon monoxide/carbon dioxide ratio is also not signicantly altered from the case where steam is not present (Fig. 14).
Fig. 12. Equilibrium gas compositions of the carbon-steam system [86,87].
Fig. 14 presents the fractional composition of carbon monoxide and

carbon dioxide in equilibrium with b-graphite at 1 atm as a function
of temperature. It can be seen that if one wants to produce carbon
monoxide preferentially, it is essential to maintain a combustion
temperature above 1000 K. As the void space underground grows
with the consumption of coal, there is more potential for gas phase
Oxidation of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide and the resulting
extreme temperatures in the gas phase; this phenomenon is
generally referred to as oxygen bypassing [87].
One of the most interesting features of carbon-oxygen steam
equilibrium calculations (Fig. 13) is that throughout the temperature range considered, the heating value of the product gas does not
decrease signicantly as the temperature decreases, in contrast to
the case where one is considering the carbon monoxide carbon
dioxideecarbon equilibrium in Fig. 14. This result from the fact that
as the carbon monoxide and hydrogen concentrations fall off with
decreasing temperature, the loss in their contribution to the heating value of the product gas is partly made up for by the increase in
the concentration of methane. Figs. 12e14 also show that increased
pressure will enhance the formation of methane.
However, owing to subsidence of the overburden, which is
unavoidable for a system that removes essentially all of the coal, the
gasication zone is usually sufciently porous to require that the
process be carried out at the lowest possible pressure to minimize
gas losses. This is a major obstacle to producing pipeline quality gas
(synthetic natural gas) by UCG [87].
3.3. Cold gas efciency (hcg)
The cold gas efciency (hcg) is a key factor assessing the energy
conversion efciency in gasication process, which is dened as
hcg

nH2 LHVH2 nCO LHVCO nCH4 LHVCH4 LHVcoal 100
(11)
Where
LHV lower heating value
n Number of moles.
hcg is mainly a function of the O2/C ratio, while the H2/CO ratio is
a more determined by the H2O/C ratio. 0.5 is the stoichiometric
203
ratio of oxygenecarbon reaction to produce carbon monoxide,

smaller O2/C ratio will not convert carbon sufciently, and CO will
burn at greater O2/C ratios. So hcg reaches the maximum value at
this ratio.
On the other hand, the water gas shift reaction is nearly
thermal-neutral compared with other reactions, so it will convert
CO into H2 without changing the hcg much. If the optimized O2/C
ratio (about 0.5) is chosen, although lower H2O/C ratio will slightly
increase the hcg meanwhile lower O2/C ratio and higher H2O/C ratio
is favorable to produce H2. Were CH4 the nal product, then low
temperature of gasication is favorable in terms of its higher H2/CO
ratio (about 3e40) in syngas.
4. Kinetic studies of UCG
The main factors that inuence the reaction rate include the
physical state of the reactants, the concentrations of the reactants,
the temperature at which the reaction occurs, and whether or not
any catalysts are present in the reaction. Chemical kinetics investigate how different experimental conditions inuence the speed of
a chemical reaction and yield information about the reactions
mechanism and transition states, as well as the construction of
mathematical models that describe the characteristics of a chemical reaction. This section reviewed coal gasication reaction
engineering. A simplied reaction sequence for coal gasication is
described in Fig. 15 [88].
Coal pyrolysis is the initial step in most coal conversion
processes followed by gas phase and gasication reactions. The
speed at which it takes place has an inuence on the subsequent
steps, so that it is of great importance in any accurate model [89].
The pyrolysis step is most dependent on the properties of the coal.
Heating of coal causes its complex structure to decompose. The
weaker bonds rupture at lower temperatures and the stronger ones
at higher temperatures.
There are many models of coal devolatilization such as Single
First Order Reaction model (SFORM), multiple parallel reaction
model (MPRM), distributed activation energy model (DAEM),
multiple competing reaction model (MCRM), and consecutive
competing char-forming reactions model (CCCRM). SFORM and
DAEM suggest that for a single block of coal, the time-evolution of
its constituent parts should be considered averaged over the whole
block. This approach ignores spatial variation of temperature and is
Fig. 13. Equilibrium gas compositions of the carbon-oxygen-steam system at adiabatic conditions [86,87].
204
Ei
RTt

ki koi exp
(13)
Where
koi is the pre-exponential or frequency factor in sec1,
Ei is the apparent activation energy for constituent i in J/mol,
R is the ideal gas constant in (J/mol kelvins) and
T(t) is the absolute temperature of the coal particle in Kelvins.
Values of koi, Ei, and Vi*are estimated from matching with
experimental data.
4.1. Single First Order Reaction model (SFORM)

The simplest method for the description of the kinetics of the
pyrolysis reactions is to use a rst order reaction for overall weight
loss of the volatile and for individual species evolution.

dV=dt ki V * V
Fig. 14. Fractional composition of CO and CO2 in equilibrium with b graphite at 1 atm
as a function of temperature.
appropriate for transient weight loss of pulverized coal and can be

used as a component of a more complicated traveling wave model
[90e93].
As the process of thermal decomposition of coal evolves, i
denotes one particular reaction and coals constituents are
numbered with i 1.n. The thermal decomposition of coal is
assumed to comprise large numbers of independent chemical
reactions. Large fragments of the coal molecule are present due to
depolymerization and the rupture of various bonds within the coal
molecule. The strength of chemical bonds depends on the coal type
and rank, related to the occurrence of different reactions at various
temperature intervals.
Vi is the released mass fraction of volatiles corresponding to
the ith constituent. Thus Vi* is the initial mass of constituent i in
the coal. The contribution to evolution by a particular reaction
is described by a rst order equation, so that the rate of
pyrolysis is

dVi
ki Vi* Vi
dt
(12)
Where ki is the rate coefcient that is typically associated with

temperature by Arrhenius equation as under,
(14)
The rate constant (k) in above equation is typically correlated

with temperature by an Arrhenius expression

E
k k0 exp
RT
(15)
According to Howard [92], the most serious problem of Equations (14) and (15) in the SFOR model is the apparently asymptotic
yield of volatiles that is observed after some time at the nal
temperature. As a result, the apparent value of V* as a function of
nal temperature is mechanistically inconsistent with the equations and is mathematically unmineable [92].
4.2. Distributed activation energy model (DAEM)
The DAEM is one of the multi-reaction models used widely to
clarify the thermal decomposition processes of coal pyrolysis. This
model was originally developed by Pitt [91] and later adapted by
Anthony [90].
Pitt [91] assumed that the evolution of a certain substance
involves an innite number of independent chemical reactions by
considering a continuous distribution of reactants. That is, many
irreversible rst-order parallel reactions that have different rate
parameters occur simultaneously. In the DAEM model, the dependence on i is replaced by a continuous dependence on activation
energy E so the values of koi, Ei and Vi* cannot be predicted earlier
and must be estimated from the experimental data.
DAEM has been applied to represent the change in overall
conversion and the change in the yield of a given component
Fig. 15. Simplied reaction sequence for coal gasication.
during the coal pyrolysis. The increase in the number of reactions

required can cause a problem. This problem is simplied by
assuming that the kis differ only in activation energy so a common
assumption is then to take all the pre-exponential factors, koi, to
have the same value ko for all constituents i.
Then the number of reactions is large enough to permit the
distribution of energy to be expressed as a distribution function
f(E), where f(E) is the distribution of activation energies, representing the differences in the activation energies of many rst order
irreversible reactions. Then f(E) dE represents the fraction of the
potential volatile loss V* that has an activation energy between E
and E dE. Thus, the total amount of volatile material available for
release from the coal can be written as:
dV * V * f EdE
(16)
With the distribution function f(E) normalized to satisfy
ZN
f EdE
(17)
The solution then becomes
V* V
V*
Zt
k0 Eexp
E
du f EdE
RTu
(18)
The model is represented as follows when it is applied to

represent the change in total volatile
V
1 *
V
Zt
E
k0 Eexp
du f EdE
RTu
(19)
Miura [94] has discussed two major weak points in DAEM

model. The rst is the assumption of a constant ko value for all
reactions. The other is the assignment of the Gaussian distribution
to f(E). It is possible to estimate f(E) from experimental data without
assuming the Gaussian distribution as performed by Vand [95].
However, in order to use the Gaussian distribution, a constant value
must be assigned to ko beforehand in order to estimate f(E). The
DAEM is generally recognized to be the most appropriate approach
to model coal pyrolysis. Hashimoto and coworkers [96] correlated
ko with E based on experimental data by the equation
ko aebE
(20)
Where a and b are constants dependent on reaction system. Once

a and i determined, f(E) can be determined by a procedure presented by Vand [95] to uniquely to t experimental data. However,
it is not easy to determine a and b experimentally [94].
Let coal is heated from a low temperature T0 (low temperature
under which reaction does not occur) at a constant heating rate a,
Then the temperature of coal at time t is given by
T T0 at
(21)
The Arrhenius equation can be described as follows:

ln
a
T2

ln

ko R
E
0:6:75
E
RT
(22)
Above equation is used to estimate both E and ko from the

Arrhenius plot of ln(a/T2) vs. 1/T at the selected V/V* values for
different a values. The relationship between V/V* vs. E could be
obtained by plotting the V/V* value against the corresponding E
value. The distribution curve of the activation energy, f(E), can be
205
obtained by simply differentiating the V/V* vs. E as shown in

following equation. No assumptions are required for the functional
forms of f(E) and k0(E) [94,97].
V
1
V*
Zf
ZES
f EdE
ES
f EdE
(23)
Two methods has been proposed to estimate f(E) and ko(E),

a differential method [94] and an integral method [98], from a set of
three TG experiments at different heating rates without assuming
ko value and functional form for f(E). It was found for three coals
that the f(E) curve spreads over 150e400 kJ/mol and that the
frequency factor ko increases with the increase of E. The assumption
of a constant ko value could not be employed for these coals. Estimated ko vs. E relationship was little dependent on coal types, and
ko increased from 1011 to 1026 sl as E increased from 150 to 400 kJ/
mol [94]. Rate constant for Multiple Parallel Reaction Model are
shown in Table 4.
Comparing the two models, three parameters, k, Eo, and s are
required in addition to V* for the DAEM model. However for the
SFOR model, only two parameters, frequency factor and activation
energy are required for analysis. In other word DAEM requires only
one additional parameter, s, from SFOR model but it is applicable to
the description of thermal decomposition processes with different
heating rates [92,100].
In DAEM reactions are assumed to consist of a set of irreversible
rst order reactions that have different activation energies and
a constant frequency factor. The differences in the activation
energies are represented by a Gaussian distribution [103].
Paea [103] evaluated the SFOR and DAEM model and found that
SFOR model is problematic because it can only be applied in
limited conditions and cannot be expected to represent data
accurately over a wide range of conditions and concludes Evidence
is found that the DAEM is more powerful than the SFOR model
in evaluating the complex experimental conditions of coal pyrolysis [103].
4.3. Reactions of formation of selected gas products in coal
pyrolysis
Assuming that the coal pyrolysis is a rst order reaction and that
the temperature increase is of linear type, the evolution rate of
a given gaseous product of coal pyrolysis can be expressed by the
equation.

dV
ko
E
ko RT 2
E
Vo e
exp

m
m E
dT
RT
RT
(24)
Table 4
The rate constants of MPRM based on individual volatile constituents.
Species
ka
Eo [kcal/mol]
Reference
CO2
CO
H2O
HCN
C2H6
CH4
H2
NH3
H2S
Tar
6.5 1016
2.2 1018
1.4 1018
1.7 1013
8.4 1014
7.5 1013
1.0 1014
1.2 1012
2.91 109
4.3 1014
8.6 1014
67.0
60.0
79.0
59.6
59.1
59.0
80.0
13.7
36.89
54.6
27.5
[99,100]
[99,100]
[99,100]
[99,100]
[99,100]
[99,100]
[99e101]
[99e101]
[90,102]
[99]
[100]
a
These constants are taken from DAEM with the standard deviations, si, are set
zeroes.
206
Where
k3
CO
CO #
0
dV/dT Rate of evolution of a given gaseous product

ko Frequency factor
m Rate of heating
E Activation energy
T Temperature
R Gas constant
Vo Total volume of resulting gas during pyrolysis
(The parentheses indicate adsorbed species). This mechanism

leads to the rate expression
g
Knowing the total volume of the material evolved, one can t

Equation (22) to the experimental results and obtain E and a.
closeness of the t is a good indication of the validity of the
assumed reaction order. As noted in the introduction, coal is such
a complicated heterogeneous mixture of different organic and
inorganic compounds that the reported pyrolysis kinetics are
undoubtedly an average for a vast number of different reactions
that give the same product. For this reason, the activation energy
and frequency factor for a particular gas evolution process areonly effective values for the whole process. Porada [104]
has determined values of activation energy and frequency
factor of particular constituent reactions of hydrogen and
methane formation during coal pyrolysis under non-isothermal
conditions.
The highest rate of the reaction occurs at the temperature which
depends on the activation energy, frequency factor, and the rate of
heating [Equation (20)]. The analysis of total kinetic curves for
methane and hydrogen rests on the determination of kinetic
parameters, such as activation energy; frequency factor and total
volume of resulting gas for each constituent reaction. Therefore it is
necessary to resolve the function expressing the formation rate of
a given product into a number of functions expressing the formation rates of particular constituent reactions. This can be done in
a graphical or analytical way. The rate of total formation reaction is
described by the equation

dV
dV1
dVn
E1 ; k0;1 ; V0;1
En ; k0;n ; V0;n
dT
dT
dT
(25)
The rate of each constituent reaction can be calculated by means

of Equation (24).
As gasication progresses, a decline in rate are usually observed
since carbon of progressively lower reactivity remains. It has been
observed that, upon heating, coal rst becomes metaplastic and
gives off volatile matter leaving a rather stable coke. Thus, coal or
char may be regarded to be composed of two distinguished
portions differing greatly in reactivity. The highly reactive portion is
related to the volatile portion of coal characterized by the aliphatic
hydrocarbon side chain, and to oxygenated functional groups
present. The low reactive portion is the residual carbonaceous coke.
Thus, the gasication of coal at elevated temperatures can be
divided into the rst and second phase reactions; each reaction
represents one of the two distinctly different reactivities of carbon
present in coal.
The following mechanism was presented by Von Fredersdorff
[86] for the CeCO2 reaction where the equilibrium adsorption of
CO2 on the carbon surface is followed by surface reaction and the
adsorbed and gas phase products are in equilibrium [105,106]
k1
CO2 # CO2
(26)
CO2 C/CO
(27)
k2
(28)
k3
kf sc pCO2
1 f0 pCO b pCO2
(29)
k0
k1 k2 0
k
a 3 , b0 10 and sc is the active surface area
k01
k3
k1
available for reaction per unit weight of carbon.
Von Fredersdorff [86] proposed a similar mechanism for the Ce
H2O reaction
Where kf
k1
H2 O # H2 O
(30)
H2 O CO/H2
(31)
k2
k3
H2
H2 #
0
(32)
k3
This leads to the rate expression
g
kf sc pH2 O
1 f0 pH2 b pH2 O
(33)
k0 0
k1 k2 0
k
,a 3 ; b 10 and sc is the active surface area
0
k1
k3
k1
available for reaction per unit weight of carbon. In the literature the
Von Fredersdorff rate equation, is generally known as a Langmuire
Hinshelwood rate expression expressed as under.
Where kf
g
kbpCO2

1 fpCO bpCO2
(34)
Where k is a rate constant and N and b are equilibrium constants.

Turkdogan and Vinters [107] postulated a reaction mechanism
involving two rate-controlling reactions in series-namely, the
dissociation of CO2 and the formation of CO on the surface of
carbon, for which the reaction rate is proportional to the partial
pressures of CO2 and to the square root of the partial pressure of
CO2, respectively. They found that at low CO content the rate is
proportional to the square root of the partial pressure of C02 and, in
the presence of more than 10% CO, that the rate is proportional to
the partial pressure of CO2.
Rao and Jalan [108] presented a critical evaluation of several
theories and rate equations for the CeCO2 reaction. They
concluded that a two-stage mechanism involving oxygen exchange
between the carbon surface and the gas phase, followed by the
rate-limiting carbon gasication step and a langmuir hinshelwood
rate expression, represented a large part of the published data.
They obtained activation energy of 79.6 kcal/g mol for the CeCO2
reaction.
Katta and Keairns [105] reviewed the recent studies on carbon
gasication reactions to shows that rate of reaction of char with
H2O and CO2 appears to depend on the following factors: (a) the
nature of the carbon (i.e., the type of coal from which char is
formed) and the temperature used in the preparation of the char;
(b) the change in reactivity during gasaication (increase or
decrease in the effective surface area available for reaction); (c) the
temperature and pressure of the reactions; (d) the gas composition
(concentration of steam, CO2, CO, and H2); (e) the mineral content
of the char; and (f) the particle size if the reactions are diffusion
controlled.
It is apparent from a large number of studies that the carbon
gasication reactions are chemically controlled below a temperature of about 1100 C for the particle sizes normally used for gasication. Above this temperature level the diffusion effects become
important [105e108].

DE5
PCO
R5 Ac e RT
(41)

DE6
PH2
R6 Ac e RT
(42)
Rate and order of the surface reaction are determined under

such conditions that diffusion is unimportant. This may be achieved
by maintaining a sufciently high ow rate and a sufciently low
temperature or by the use of low pressure. Mayers [109] found the
reaction to be rst order between 930 and 1650 F. Above 1650 F,
however, diffusion controlled the reaction. Riley [110] based on his
experiments on the oxidation of coal, reported energies of activation between 13.7 and 16.4 kcal.

K1 1=2 1=2
pH2 K2 K3 PH2 PCO2 K2 K3 PH2 O PCO
K1

K2 PCO K3 PH2

R7
4.4. Order of reaction and activation energy
(43)
Here;

K1 a1 T b1 e
4.5. Rate controlling step

K3 a3 e
K1
(35)
The above equation can be expressed in term of the partial

pressure, based on nding of the Fredersdorff and Elliott and
further work by Guo [116] and Yang [112,113]

DE1
PO2
R1 Ac e RT
:

R2 Ac e T

R3 Ac e
bT
DE1
RT
(36)
PH2 O
RT
DE2
(44)

RT
K3 a3 e
(45)

(46)
(47)
DE2
RT
DE3
(48)

RT
(49)
Where;
Kj The equilibrium constant of chemical reaction j,
Kf The equilibrium constant expressed in terms of the partial
fugacity of every composition;
Ej The activation energy of chemical reaction j,
R universal gas constant;
G The free enthalpy of standard formation
T Temperature
Pi partial pressure of composition i in the mixed gas.
Key aspects of kinetic assessment of UGC are summarized in
Table 5.
5. Challenges for UCG
PCO2
RT
DE
a
DE3
4.6. Chemical reaction rate
K Ac e RT :
DE1
a1
T
K2 a2 e
The diffusion rate of the mole number for gas compositions

equals the dynamic reaction rate of coal surface. On the basis of the
above, we can obtain every chemical reaction rate Rj. The inuence
of temperature on the reaction rate is mainly reected on the
constant of reaction rate (K). According to literature the Arrhenius
formula is:

K2 a2 T b2 e
Increase in the rate of reaction with increasing gas velocity then

indicates mass-transport effects. From the work reported, it may be
concluded, with reservation, that diffusion controls the rate of
oxidation of carbon at temperatures greater than 1350 F, for
velocities up to 50,000 feet per second. The rate varies as the 0.4 to
0.7 power of the mass velocity with an apparent energy of activation between 2.3 and 5.3 kcal per g mol [111].
207
(37)
1
PCO PH2
kf
!
(38)
The UCG process characteristics are strongly related not only to

the technological but also to the natural factors, such as geology
and hydrogeology of coal seams, their thickness, quality of coal and
the surrounding stratum. Virgin coal seams are reported to be the
optimal in terms of the UCG process.
Where
DG
kf e RT
(39)

R4 Ac e
DE4
RT

2
PH

2O
1
P
kf CH4
!
(40)
5.1. Suitable site selection

Geological, geotechnical and hydrogeological issues are paramount in the selection of a site suitable for application of UCG
techniques. The geological evaluation of the site requires
a comprehensive representation of the coal seam, as well as of the
overlying and underlying strata. Geotechnical factors such as the
208
Table 5
Key aspects of kinetic assessment of UGC.
Parameters
Expression/Model
Key aspects
Kinetic Studies of UCG
Single First Order Reaction Model (SFORM)

dV=dt ki V * V
Expression is use to evaluate overall weight loss of the volatile

and for individual species evolution.
Two parameters, frequency factor and activation energy
are required for analysis.
Value of V* as a function of nal temperature is mathematically
unamenable
Expression widely used to evaluate overall weight loss during
the thermal decomposition processes at different heating rates
Three parameters, k, Eo, and s are required for analysis
Expression is used to evaluate rate of formation of a given
gaseous product during coal pyrolysis.
Reactions of formation of selected

gas products in coal Pyrolysis
Order of reaction and activation

energy-Arrhenius formula
Distributed Activation Energy Model (DAEM)

Z t
V
E
du f EdE
k0 Eexp
1 *
RTu
V
0

E
ko RT 2
E

exp

dV
ko
RT
RT
m
E
Vo e
dT
m
dV
dV1
dVn
E ; k ; V
En ; k0;n ; V0;n
dT
dT 1 0;1 0;1
dT
DE
K Ac e RT
strength, jointing and deformability of the overlying strata all have

a role to play in the response of the prole to the process occurring
in the coal seam. The groundwater regime must be dened, both
regionally and in the vicinity of the operation. Groundwater pressures in the coal seam and its permeability to water ow are
integral to the UCG process operation. They govern the oxidant
injection pressure that can be used and the potential water ow
into the gasication cavity, which will impact on the chemistry of
the reaction in the chamber. The presence of signicant aquifer
systems in the prole, particularly above the coal seam, may be
impacted by subsidence resulting from roof collapse into the
process cavity with potentially disastrous consequences to the
operation [114].
Expression is used to the evaluate rate of total formation reactions

Equation can be expressed in term of the partial pressure
If rate and order of the surface reaction are determined at high
ow rate and a sufciently low temperature or by the use
of low pressure, the diffusion is unimportant
Above 1650 F diffusion control the reaction
quantity and quality of coal available. In the UK for the UCG site the
following selection criteria are used by DTI [115]: (i) Coal seam
4.2 m thick, (ii) depth between 600 and 1200 m, (iii) the availability
of good density and bore hole data, (iv) standoff 4.500 m from
abandoned mine working license areas and (v) greater than 100 m
vertical separation from major aquifers. A good knowledge of the
adjacent strata is required to ensure well bore and environmental
integrity. The explorations present no exceptional technical problems for the UCG process though there is always a chance that the
site may get rejected as the study proceeds, due to the presence of
a surrounding good quality water aquifer, low strength overburden
or discontinuous coal seam layers. The cost of exploratory drilling
and 3D seismic survey is high but is necessary for successful UCG
operation [73].
5.2. Technical challenges for UCG

There are many practical difculties still to be overcome, and it
is already clear that the technology can only be applied to certain
types of coal seam. The hydrogeology of the seam is important,
since excessive ingress of water would render the process uneconomic, and leakage of gas into underground water supplies could
represent an environmental hazard. Both air and oxygen gasication has been tried. With air a very low Btu gas is produced,
whereas with oxygen the cost of the blast and the losses make the
process very costly. For these and other reasons, no commercial
development has yet emerged [114].
Successful application of the UCG process requires the integration of a wide range of technical disciplines, which may also explain
its slow commercial acceptance. Such specialist skills as are used in
the elds of chemistry, chemical engineering, geology, geotechnical
engineering and geohydrology are all necessary to plan and execute
a successful UCG project [114].
5.2.1. The major issues in the use of UCG technology
UCG requires an understanding of various aspects of the
selected site. The geology, hydrology, mining, drilling, exploration,
chemistry and thermodynamics of the gasication reactions in the
cavity are important parameters for successful operation. Before
starting UCG, many issues should be considered. Some of them are
discussed in following section [26].
5.2.2. Exploration of the UCG site
The potential of the UCG site can be estimated by identifying the
geological structure of the coal seam, its depth and thickness,
5.2.3. Choice of a suitable drilling technique

A good drilling technique is necessary to connect the injection
and production wells. The cavity between these two wells is
considered as the gasication reactor.
5.2.4. Environment and safety
The various environmental issues associated with UCG are discussed in this section.
5.2.4.1. CO2 emissions. In the UCG process CO2 separation from the
product gas and storage are the major concerns. CO2 is produced in
signicant amounts during the gasication. CO2 must be captured
before venting to the atmosphere and stored or utilized for various
applications. The higher pressure of the gas is an advantage offered
by UCG for CO2 storage. CO2 sequestration work is under development internationally via the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) and Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum [116].
5.2.4.2. Groundwater contamination. Groundwater pollution is
caused by the diffusion and penetration of contaminants generated by underground gasication processes toward surrounding
strata and the possible leaching of underground residue by
natural groundwater ow after gasication. The source of inorganic pollutants is primarily ash leachate, while the source of
organics and ammonia is primarily condensed vapors. Typical
organic pollutants include phenols, benzene, minor components
such as PAHs and heterocyclics. Inorganic pollutants involve
cations and anions [117e119]. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs) are hydrocarbons containing two or more fused benzene
rings. They are environmental pollutants and are considered

a health concern due to their potential carcinogenic, mutagenic,
and toxic characteristics, as well as for the possible synthesis of
dioxins from them. Therefore, PAHs have been listed as priority
controlled pollutants by most of countries. Generally, the
formation of PAHs is accelerated by higher heating rates. This is
especially true of the lower molecular weight PAHs. When the
heating rate changes from 15 to 40 C/min the total PAH yield
increases by nearly 2.23 times.
The formation of contaminants is the function of coal rank, the
elemental composition of coal, and the gasication temperature. In
case of hard coal gasication, the total load of inorganic and organic
pollutants in the process water is substantially higher in comparison to lignite. It has been identied that the reaction pH is the
parameter affecting concentrations of heavy metals in process
waters [117].
The process of underground coal gasication is accompanied by
heating of the roof and oor rocks of the coal bed and subsurface
waters. It is known that an increase of temperature of subsurface
waters leads to a change in the chemical and physical properties of
water: a) the solvent power of water increases; b) the density of
water decreases (the volume of liquid increases); c) the viscosity of
water decreases.
The transport of aqueous phase contaminants depends on the
permeability of in situ rocks, the geological setting of the gasication reactor and the hydrogeology of the area [118]. Study results of
large-scale UCG projects conducted during the late 1950s and early
1960s have revealed that groundwater contaminants, resulting
from gasication, to be widespread and persistent, even up to ve
years after production had ceased. There are other reports stating
that phenols were found with another aquifer in the former Soviet
Union which extended over an area of 10 km2 [118].
The UCG site should be carefully evaluated for groundwater
contamination. The UCG site should be away from the water
aquifers. Detailed analysis is needed and after UCG start up, regular
checkup of the water near the UCG site should be done [116].
5.2.4.3. Surface subsidence. The multiwell technology can be used
to reduce the chances of surface subsidence. The bore diameter in
UCG is smaller than in usual mining operations. So there are less
chances of surface subsidence when compared to conventional coal
mining [116].
5.2.4.4. Volatilization of mercury, arsenic and selenium. It is necessary to determine the amount of the volatile elements in the raw
coals and the modes of their occurrence, in order to understand
their volatilization behavior during the UCG process. Coal type and
its UCG behavior also have an effect on volatilization. Being the
highly volatile elements, mercury, arsenic and selenium are
released from coal during the chemical and physical changes
involved and become distributed mainly in the gas phase. The fuel
gas produced from UCG process will inevitably be mixed with trace
elements, especially the highly volatile ones such as mercury,
arsenic and selenium, as a result of the high temperatures involved
in the gasication process. However, UCG fuel gas cools as it passes
through the production well and a signicant proportion of the
contaminants will deposit or condense in this transit. Those trace
elements that do exit from the production well will be discharged
into the atmosphere through direct combustion and will additionally cause deposition and corrosion when the gas is used for gas
turbine power generation [120].
Set against these, its outstanding environmental advantages are
the elimination of coal stock piles and coal transport and much of
the disturbance at surface, low dust and noise levels, the absence of
health and safety concerns relating to underground workers, the
209
avoidance of ash handling at power stations, and the elimination of

SO2 and NOx emissions [37].
Table 6 summarized the challenge in UGC and their prospective
solutions.
6. Advantages of underground coal gasication
This section discusses the advantages and limitations of UGC.
6.1. Advantages of underground coal gasication
The advantages of UCG over conventional underground or strip
mining are related to its resource recovery, environmental impact,
health and safety benets, process efciency and economic
potential. Table 7 summarized the advantages and limitations of
UGC.
6.2. UGC challenge and promises
Whilst the underlying science can be developed through
modeling work backed up by laboratory-scale experimental work,
most countries active in the eld have found the need to move to
pilot-scale trials in order to explore UCG performance at depth in
coal seams. The cost of these trials tends to be dominated by drilling
costs and usually amount to millions of pounds. Extended trials to
explore the consistency of operation over a period of time are
particularly expensive. The trials reported todate are at relatively
shallow depths (100e200 m). There are clear conclusions that can
be drawn from the work to date:
6.3. UCG-CCS concept
All fossil fuels produce CO2 when burned conventionally, but
some liberate more energy than others in the process. Although
caloric values vary by source, typical gures would be 50 GJ t1 for
natural gas, 45 GJ t1 for crude oil and 30 GJ t1 for coal e which
means that coal has the highest CO2 emissions per unit of energy
produced. If we are going to see a major swing toward the use of
coal, technologies for capturing the downstream CO2 emissions
become increasingly important [37].
The broad technology options available for capturing CO2 are
physical absorption, chemical absorption, membrane separation
and cryogenic separation [37,121]. CO2 storage capacities of deep
deposits mainly depend on their accessibility to carbon dioxide
with respect to pore space for free gas storage and surface area for
storage by sorption.
The UCG process creates voids deep underground following
gasication of the coal. These voids will inevitably collapse, just as
voids produced by longwall coal mining do, leaving high permeability zones of articial breccias e known as goaf (meaning
a cave) e which are almost invariably isolated from surface by low
permeability superincumbent strata. Where UCG has taken place at
depths in excess of about 700e800 m, storage of CO2 in these
articial high permeability zones is a very attractive proposition. A
combined UCGeCCS project can then offer integrated energy
recovery from coal and storage of CO2 at the same site [37,121].
Physical sorption represents a feasible option for CO2 storage in
underground gasication cavities [122]. If UCG can be successfully
linked to CCS, then the combined UCGeCCS offering provides a way
of harnessing the energy contained within huge untapped coal
resource whilst remaining within the ever-tightening targets for
reducing CO2 emissions. Regarding the safety of CCS, the failure of
the underground CO2 storage system appears to have limited
consequences, suggesting a low risk [123].
210
Table 6
UGC challenge and solutions.
Parameter
Challenges
Potential solutions
Site Selection
The presence of signicant aquifer systems in the prole,

particularly above the coal seam, may be impacted
by subsidence resulting from roof collapse into
the process cavity with potentially disastrous
consequences to the operation.
Deeper seams require guided drilling technology
to initiate a well at the surface that is deviated
to intercept and follow a coal seam for many
hundreds of meters, and establish a link between
injection and production wells. This results in higher
drilling costs. Deep seams require higher injection
and operating pressure, and increase the cost of any
subsequent pump-and-treat option.
The evaluation of potentially productive sites
must include the determination of the amount
of coal available in a gasication project in conjunction
with a consideration of the potential applications
of the produced gas.
Excellent treatise on UCG site selection has been published

by the U.S. Department of Energy.
During in situ coal gasication remote sensing technique
may be used for mapping underground fracture systems,
locating tunnels or water-bearing strata and mapping burn fronts.
Shallower seams are more likely to produce surface subsidence.
As extraction depth increases, surface subsidence decreases.
Deeper seams are less likely to be linked with potable aquifers,
thus avoiding drinkable water contamination problems.
If the product gas is to be used in gas turbines, additional
compression may not be necessary.
UCG cavities at depths of more than 800 m could be used
for CO2 sequestration.
For each potential site, the productive lifetime of the site must
be determined as a function of required gas yield. For 20-year
continuous operation of a 300 MW UCG-based combined-cycle
power plant (efciency, 50%), it is necessary to produce
75.6 109 Nm3 of syngas with a heating value of 5 MJ/m3.
Based on 95% recovery of the coal resource
and 75% total energy recovery, 33 106 metric tons coal will be
required to be gasied for this purpose [33].
A combined UCGeCCS project can offer integrated energy
recovery and storage of CO2 at the same site.
UCG below the water table avoid inducing uncontrolled
ingress of oxygen from the surface.
Depth of the coal seam
Evaluation of potentially
productive sites
CO2 Emissions
Uncontrolled ingress of oxygen
from the surface
Groundwater Contamination
Surface Subsidence
The productive lifetime of the site

Volatilization of Mercury, Arsenic
and Selenium.
In the UCG process CO2 separation from the product

gas and storage are the major concerns.
There is a risk of uncontrolled oxygen ingress occurring,
potentially supporting a wildre in the coal seam,
which is highly undesirable.
Groundwater pollution is caused by the diffusion
and penetration of contaminants generated
by underground gasication processes toward
surrounding strata and the possible leaching
of underground residue by natural groundwater
ow after gasication.
Under the high temperature, the internal molecular

structure reorganizes, which completely changes
the coal seams surface morphology.
Stress and displacement will happen among rocks
due to the high temperature.
Being the highly volatile elements, mercury, arsenic

and selenium are released from coal during
the chemical and physical changes involved
and become distributed mainly in the gas phase.
Careful evaluation of UCG site help in avoiding for groundwater

contamination.
The UCG site should be away from the water aquifers.
Detailed analysis UCG at start up and regular checkup of the water
near the UCG site should be done for efcient monitoring.
Younger [79] has provided checklist of key hydrogeological issues,
and actions required for dealing with them, for all of the main phases
of the life-cycle of UCG (-CCS) operations.
Numerical simulation on the temperature eld, concentration eld
and pressure eld is reasonable in the underground gasication
of steep coal seams on the experimental condition. Same can be
used to predict the operating condition during UGC.
Multiwell technology can be used to reduce the chances
of surface subsidence.
Coal type and its UCG behavior effect volatilization.
It is necessary to determine the amount of the volatile elements
in the raw coals and the modes of their occurrence, in order
to understand their volatilization behavior during the UCG process.
UCG fuel gas cools as it passes through the production well
causing signicant proportion of the contaminants to deposit
or condense in transit conduit.
Those trace elements that do exit from the production well
can be handled using pollution presentation technology.
6.4. Post-burn processing
6.5. Economics
The product gas can serve different purposes such as being used
as fuel gas or as feedstock for liquid fuels and chemicals [33]. The
raw product gas from UCG is similar to that produced by surface
gasiers for which gas cleaning technologies have already been
developed. Additionally, the product gas can be processed to
remove its CO2 content before it is passed to the end users; the
captured CO2 can then be stored in the underground cavity, thereby
contributing to climate change mitigation [26]. The post-burn, rawgas processing is tailored to the impurities present and the
requirements for the nal product gas. When the product gas
reaches the surface it contains energy not only in its chemical
composition but also in its high temperature, pressure and velocity.
The gas treatment system must accept product gas at elevated
temperatures and high pressures (5.3 MPa) from the production
wellhead clean and dry this stream and route it to the end use while
maximizing the potential for energy conversion.
Most estimates for conventional oil and gas suggest a peak in

production in the next 10e15 years, with reserves being
substantially depleted by 2050 for oil and 2070 for gas. Compared
with these, coal reserves are usually estimated at more than 200
years [37,121]. Against this background, if UCG technology can
effectively increase usable coal resources three-fold, by releasing
the energy from coals that are inaccessible using conventional
mining techniques, the economic case for UCG as a bridging technology becomes compelling. In broad terms, the economic case for
UCG is a balance between positive and negative factors. On the
positive side, UCG offers a low-cost route to emissions reduction;
the cost is lower than for surface gasication plants because there is
no need to mine, store or transport coal, there are no solid residues
to dispose of, and there is no need to purchase a gasier; it converts
an abundant natural resource into a secure, economic supply of gas;
it enables stranded coal resources (e.g. deep or offshore) to be
211
Table 7
Advantages and limitations of UGC.
Advantages of UGC
Limitations
It can be used to recover the energy content of low rank coals that are not economically
or technically feasible to recover by conventional technologies because of their seam thickness,
depth, high ash and/or excessive moisture content, large dip angle, or undesirable
overburden properties.
Coals that are unmineable (too deep, low grade, thin seams) are exploitable by UCG,
thereby greatly increasing resource availability.
Lignite and sub bituminous coal are ideal for gasication, as is bituminous coal provided
no signicant swelling characteristics exist.
CVs in the range of 12e14 MJ/m3 are recorded when using oxygen feed and this may be
slightly increased as the process develops at a greater depth.
Deeper coals offer the opportunity to have much higher pressures in the reactor resulting
in higher methane content and resultant higher heat value gas.
The UCG process has a higher thermal efciency than surface gasication processes.
The CRIP concept has led to the highest gasication efciency in terms of oxygen usage
and will allow subsidence to be minimized or possible eliminated, by using wider
barrier pillars between panels.
UCG also lowers the capital investment by eliminating the need for specialized coal mining,
processing (transporting and stocking) and gasication reactors, reducing operating costs,
surface damage and eliminating mine safety issues such as mine collapse and asphyxiation.
UGC uses lesswater than surface gasication processes which must maintain a high
steam-to-air ratio to avoid slagging. Furthermore. It does not use high quality surface
water, but utilizes the water within the coal seam itself.
Most of the ash in the coal stays underground, thereby avoiding the need for excessive
gas clean-up, and the environmental issues associated with y ash waste stored at the surface.
Reclamation of the land is not a serious problem since the surface disturbance is minimal.
There is no production of some criteria pollutants (e.g., SOx, NOx) and many other pollutants
(mercury, particulates, sulfur species) are greatly reduced in volume and easier to handle.
UCG eliminates much of the energy waste associated with moving waste as well as usable
product from the ground to the surface;
UCG, compared to conventional mining combined with surface combustion, produces less
greenhouse gas and has advantages for geologic carbon storage.
The well infrastructure for UCG can be used subsequently for geologic CO2 sequestration
operations. It may be possible to store CO2 in the reactor zone underground as well in
adjacent strata.
UCG research and development have been conducted in several countries, including
long-term commercial operation of several UCG plants in the former Soviet Union.
Shallow seams are not suitable for gasication because of high

gas losses, potential breakthrough to surface and possible
contamination of groundwater. The shallowness of the coal
seams means the pressure in the reactor is low and the
quality of the gas produced is reduced compared
to deeper systems. Heat losses are considerable with such seams,
leading to low thermal efciency and lower product gas quality.
Thin seams, less than 3 m thick, will be difcult to exploit
economically unless in a multi-seam environment.
Installation of well pairs (injection and production wells)
is costly and therefore it is desirable to gasify
the maximum volume of coal between a well pair.
During UCG processes, the surrounding rock acting
as the furnace walls will be affected by high temperature,
and its mechanical properties will change with the increased
temperatures.
Stress and displacement will happen among rocks due
to the high temperature.
converted into commercial reserves; there is a range of potential

end uses and markets, e.g. power generation, heating, synthetic
fuels, chemicals and hydrogen; it is largely immune to crude oil
price swings (unlike conventional coal mining which relies on
diesel-fueled equipment and transportation); and it is cheaper than
natural gas for power generation [121].
The negatives are: technical and commercial uncertainty, since
the technology has not yet been widely deployed; syngas production
rates and composition are variable compared with pipeline-delivered

natural gas; open-cast coal mining (where acceptable) is cheap; there
is a risk of ground subsidence and a risk of aquifer contamination
(especially freshwater aquifers); trials and prospective site evaluation
are expensive; there can be signicant costs in transporting the
syngas to the point of use; and planning approval processes are still
under review in various countries. This is the background against
which prospective investors have to make a decision [121].
Table 8
Economic and environmental benets of UCG.
Aspects relevant to the commercial viability of UCG
Economic and environmental benets of UCG over coal mining

for power generation
1. The productive lifetime of the site (must be determined

as a function of required gas yield)
2. Geological variables and relationship to drilling difculty and cost
3. Drilling difculty and drilling cost
4. Power output and life of the gasier
5. Subsidence effects
6. Safety of production operations
7. Commercial perspective of UCG industry
8. Strategic value of UCG
9. Environmental sensitivities
10.
The potential market e chemical and power generation industries
1. Potentially lower overall capital and operating costs

2. Flexibility of access to mineral
3. Larger coal resource exploitable
4. Lower fugitive dust, noise and visual impact on the surface
5. Lower water consumption
6. Low risk of surface water pollution
7. Reduced methane emissions
8. No dirt handling and disposal at mine sites
9. No coal washing and nes disposal at mine sites
10.
No ash handling and disposal at power station sites
11.
No coal stocking and transport
12.
Smaller surface footprints at power stations
13.
No minewater recovery and signicant surface hazard
liabilities on abandonment
212
The economic case for UCG syngas displacing natural gas or coal
for power generation is relatively straightforward. Alternative uses,
such as conversion of syngas into liquid fuels, chemical intermediates or hydrogen, are more difcult because, whilst the added
value is well known (and much higher than for power generation),
there is a tighter requirement for syngas clean-up. Technologies for
cleaning up UCG syngas to chemical feedstock standard are still
under development and so the costs are less well known [121].
The size of the coal resource is a major commercial factor for the
development of the underground coal gasication process. In
general, the requisite resource properties include availability of at
least 50 million tons of coal in place in a coal seam at least 15 feet
thick. The seam depth should be no more than 1200 feet for horizontal seams and no more than 1500 feet for steeply dipping
beds [22].
The market for the product gas is the second major factor for
commercial development of UCG. If the markets for utilizing the
gases are located near the gasication site then gas can be
economically transported. Key economic and environmental
benets of UCG are listed in Table 8.
The investigation shows that underground coal gasication will
inevitably cause a potential environmental problem, viz. degrading
the groundwater quality in the vicinity of the gasication panel. As
time progresses, the situation will become more serious. So, as
clean energy is developed, it may result in secondary pollution or
even destroy the ecological safety at the same time [7].
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
7. Conclusions and future prospects

[16]
In spite of the signicant advantages of UGC technology

summarized in Table 7 there was no comprehensive review on UCG
process description with emphasis on its thermodynamic and
kinetic studies. There was also lack of compact review articles in
this area. We anticipate that this review will promote research and
development efforts, scale-up of the gasication process, and largescale implementation of UCG in future. Classication Criteria for
UCG is summarized in Table 3 whilst the underlying science is being
developed through modeling work backed up by laboratory-scale
experimental work. In this study the key aspects of kinetic
assessment of UGC are given in Table 4, however most countries
active in the eld have realized the need to move to pilot-scale
trials in order to explore UCG performance at depth in coal
seams. The cost of these trials tends to be dominated by drilling
costs and usually amount to millions of pounds. Extended trials to
explore the consistency of operation over a period of time are
particularly expensive.
The technology of UCG has been technically proven to work at
numerous locations and different depths ranging from several
hundred meters up to 1.4 km of depth. Nevertheless, eld tests have
been encouraging, and there is a growing body of positive
economic projections as the technology becomes gradually established. An upcoming project now being planned by an industrial
consortiumd what will be the rst commercial burndmay be the
most promising event for the future of underground coal
gasication.
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Underground Coal Gasification From Fundamentals To Applications

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Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 39 (2013) 189e214

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Progress in Energy and Combustion Science

Underground coal gasication: From fundamentals to applications

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 60 7 553583; fax: 60 7 5566177.

Thermodynamics of UCG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .201

potential sites for UCG operations correspond to locations where

Underground gasication can be described as (1) a process where

Mendeleyev 20 years later. No further work was done until the

Seam thickness (m)

Seam depth (m)

Coal gasied (t)

Information on UCG technology, however, is limited and there is

2. Underground coal gasication

these processes depend mostly on the temperature. On the phase

Fig. 5. Qualitative description of phenomena at the UCG cavity wall [16,19].

Therefore, it eventually determines the rate of chemical reaction

underground gasication of steep coal seams on the experimental

Fig. 8. Gas composition variation with steam/oxygen (v/v) [60].

by a very small distance. The overall reaction rate is determined by

In thermal-explosion gasication method, under the pure

affected. Most of thermal reactions in argillaceous rocks are

chemical reactions, and other geological aspects [57]. Several

Installation of well pairs (injection and production wells) is

Fig. 10. Gasication channels in coal seems [11].

distance, the higher the oxygen concentration; otherwise, the

3.1. Thermodynamic equilibrium

Therefore, at equilibrium, when conditions of constant pressure

and at equilibrium under these conditions, the following equation

Therefore, at equilibrium, the Gibbs free energy must reach

steam ratio is optimized such that the global reaction is thermal

Fig. 12. Equilibrium gas compositions of the carbon-steam system [86,87].

Fig. 14 presents the fractional composition of carbon monoxide and

ratio of oxygenecarbon reaction to produce carbon monoxide,

4.1. Single First Order Reaction model (SFORM)

appropriate for transient weight loss of pulverized coal and can be

Where ki is the rate coefcient that is typically associated with

The rate constant (k) in above equation is typically correlated

Fig. 15. Simplied reaction sequence for coal gasication.

during the coal pyrolysis. The increase in the number of reactions

With the distribution function f(E) normalized to satisfy

The solution then becomes

The model is represented as follows when it is applied to

Miura [94] has discussed two major weak points in DAEM

Where a and b are constants dependent on reaction system. Once

The Arrhenius equation can be described as follows:

Above equation is used to estimate both E and ko from the

obtained by simply differentiating the V/V* vs. E as shown in

Two methods has been proposed to estimate f(E) and ko(E),

dV/dT Rate of evolution of a given gaseous product

(The parentheses indicate adsorbed species). This mechanism

Knowing the total volume of the material evolved, one can t

The rate of each constituent reaction can be calculated by means

This leads to the rate expression

Where k is a rate constant and N and b are equilibrium constants.

Rate and order of the surface reaction are determined under

4.4. Order of reaction and activation energy

4.5. Rate controlling step

The above equation can be expressed in term of the partial

4.6. Chemical reaction rate

The diffusion rate of the mole number for gas compositions

Increase in the rate of reaction with increasing gas velocity then

The UCG process characteristics are strongly related not only to