Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 14, 1994                   TAG: 9410140083
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-13   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

TECH GETS FUNDS FOR RESEARCH

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, and Dr. Roe-Hoan Yoon, director of Tech's Center for Coals and Minerals Processing, announced the U.S. Energy Department grants Thursday.

One award, for $300,000, will pay for continued work in a field that Yoon and his researchers pioneered over the past decade: refining the so-called Microcell technique, which uses tiny bubbles of water to clean impurities from coal.

The method, already in use at coal plants in Southwest Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio, makes cleaner-burning coal and is expected to make central Appalachian coal more competitive in certain overseas markets, Boucher said.

That's because the cleansing technique removes sulfur and ash particles and makes the region's already low-sulfur coal more attractive in European markets, where pollution-control requirements are stringent.

The technique's environmental effects will become more important in the United States in coming years as Clean Air Act provisions become stricter.

It also helps the coalfields of far Southwest Virginia.

"It reduces the cost of producing coal in Virginia," Yoon said.

The second grant, for $1 million, will pay for research into an entirely new method of coal cleaning, using electrostatic fields to separate out impurities. Such a dry-cleaning technique would save money by eliminating the need for the drying process after water treatment.

``[Yoon] is known for his success in taking a very modest investment of federal dollars combined with private dollars ... and then using those research funds to create commercially valuable technology,'' Boucher said. ``We're confident he's going to do it with the electrostatic process as well.''

Yoon, a 17-year Tech employee who heads a staff of 25, said the long-term study of coal cleaning has provided research and teaching opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.

The Microcell technology "was successful because the concept was conceived by basic research," Yoon said. Six years of that work, ongoing since the early 1980s, was funded through Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology, he said.