The speaker for this webinar varies from academia to government. One of them is Prof. Dwiwahju Sasongko, ITB Chemical Engineering Professor. On this occasion Prof. Dwiwahju Sasongko explained several things about environmentally friendly coal processing technology.

Prof. Dwiwahju Sasongko said coal is a deposit of organic carbon compounds that are formed naturally from plant residues. The first coal formation occurred around 360-290 million years ago.

Currently the use of coal raises pros and cons among industry players and environmental activists. Prof. Dwiwahju Sasongko explained that the use of coal does bring advantages and disadvantages. In terms of profit, coal can supply electricity constantly, the capital cost is low, and the price is relatively cheap. As for the loss, it can cause greenhouse gas emissions and damage to the ecosystem around the mine.

"Basically, coal utilization is carried out through several processes, namely gasification, carbonization/pyrolysis, liquefaction, and combustion," he said. In the process of burning coal, the simplest tool used is a home appliance, namely the furnace. Meanwhile, the PLTU industry uses large capacity commercial coal furnaces, namely the Pulverized Combustion (PC) and Fluidized Bed Combustion (FBC) methods.

“To assess the efficiency level of the two methods, we need to consider the main aspects of developing environmentally friendly coal utilization technologies. One of them is the reduction of CO₂, SO_x, NO_x, and particulate emissions. One of the reasons the FBC method is more efficient is because it produces less NOx than the PC method,” he said.

In addition to these aspects, there are several other aspects in the development of environmentally friendly coal utilization technology, namely improving the performance of conventional technology and developing new utilization technologies. Therefore, ITB as one of the universities in Indonesia also conducted several studies. Some of them have been, are being, and will be implemented. For example, such as the manufacture of hybrid coal, removal of SO_x from fuel gas, and utilization of CO₂ from fuel gas for the manufacture of formic acid, methanol, etc.

Reporter: Kevin Agriva Ginting (TPB, 2020)
Translator: Aghisna Syifa Rahmani (TPB SITHS 2020)