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Michael Roberts is a senior engineer in the Gasification and Gas Processing Group of the Gas Technology Institute (formed with the merger of Gas Research Institute and the Institute of Gas Technology). GTI is the leading research, development and training organization serving the natural gas industry. Mr. Roberts is in charge of the Membranes and Separations Technology Group. He is currently conducting research for the conversion of chicken litter to energy and fertilizer with primary funding by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. GTI recently demonstrated that chicken litter can be gasified to produce hydrogen and generate electricity using a solid oxide fuel cell. Mr. Roberts is also managing a project for the gasification/reforming of Illinois coal using a novel low-temperature plasma technique. He also provided an update on his current project for hydrogen production from a biomass gasifier using a hydrogen selective membrane to the Minnesota Renewable Hydrogen Initiative Forum.
Mr. Roberts has extensive plant operational experience including either design, construction, operation, and/or assistance with the following processes: A cyclic oxygen enrichment of combustion air, 4,000 SCFH; a fluidized-bed hydroretort, 1 t/d; the U-GAS® ash agglomerating coal gasifier, 6 t/d; a moving bed HYTORT® retorting process, 24 t/d; a coal wet carbonization reactor (2,000 psig), 1 t/d; a peat wet carbonization slurry process, 1 gpm; an air partial oxidation reactor, 2,000 SCFH; a mixed plastics pyrolyzer, 1 lb/h; a METHANE de-NOX® reburn installation, 375 MMBtu/h boiler; a biomass gasification plant, 100 t/d; Morphysorb gas processing, 1 MMscfd; and a Thermal Conversion Process (TCP), 7 t/d.
Mr. Roberts conducted some of the first confirmation tests in 1998 for the TCP process on a bulk sample of asphaltines, as a contractor for CWT. More recently, Mr. Roberts has been GTI’s liaison for TCP operations at the Philadelphia Naval Business Center plant site. Mr. Roberts has over 35 years of process, design, energy, and environmental engineering experience. He received a B.S. and an M.Ch.E. degree in Chemical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He was awarded a NATO Advanced Study Institute Grant to lecture in Turkey in 1993. He is a professional engineer in Illinois and New Jersey. Mr. Roberts holds two patents and has published extensively on energy, process and environmental topics. | 