The Center for Coal and the Environment, located in the Metals Development Building, has been in the news recently because of research in the field of gassification.

Robert Brown, director of the center and professor of mechanical engineering, said gassification is the conversion of solid materials into a gas that can be used for drying seed crops or generating power.

The center focuses on three areas of research: biomass energy, wind energy and environmental technologies. He said gassification falls under biomass energy.

“Biomass energy focuses on using agricultural residues, corn stalks, for example, as a fuel,” Brown said. “There is also a possibility of growing special crops for fuel.”

Glenn Norton, associate scientist at the Ames Laboratory and the Center for Coal and the Environment, said Brown is the lead scientist on the gassification project, but he is helping out with the details.

“I will be involved with the analytical aspects relating to the gassification research, so I will be maintaining equipment, doing training and so forth,” Norton said.

Brown said environmental technologies encompass traditional areas of research such as fossil fuels. Norton’s research falls in this category.

Norton said his research deals with studying mercury emissions in coal combustion.

“It’s a big area right now in the environmental field. Mercury chemistry is poorly understood,” Norton said.

The wind energy research is led by Ganesh Rajagopalan, professor of aerospace engineering.

“His specialty is to model the performance of both individual wind turbines and wind farms,” Brown said. “He is looking at how wind turbines interact with one another, how much noise is generated, and he is predicting how much power could be produced.”

Brown said the Center for Coal and Environment was one of the first centers on campus. It was originally known as the Iowa State Mining and Mineral Resources Research Institute.

“It was started in response to calls for greater use of coal resources in the state of Iowa,” Brown said.

He said the center’s goal was to assist the mining industry in Iowa.

“Ultimately, the last mine in Iowa closed, and in more recent years, [we experienced a] shift toward environmental issues,” Brown said.

He said the center’s name changed about four years ago, and he joined the program as director about two and a half years ago.

“At that time I recommended that our focus move away from fossil fuels toward renewable industry.”

He said there has been quite a bit of interest in that area in recent years.

Brown said the center is part of the Institute for Physical Research and Technology, which is a state funded organization.

“We bring in outside funds from various federal agencies and various industrial sources to supplement [our state funds],” Brown said.

He said Ames Lab, a federally funded organization, is closely aligned to the IPRT, so scientists may move back and forth between the two.

“Right now we have about a half-dozen faculty members working for the center,” Brown said.

He said the center is always looking to the future.

“We believe there are going to be opportunities to develop value-added products from agriculture,” Brown said. “This will include both energy and chemicals, as well as food production.”