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SUCCESS IN PHASE III 



The companies from our first five cycles of awards have already 

 received over $300 million in Phase III funding, which is twice 

 the SBIR support they were given. The Phase II projects of these 

 companies started between 1984 and 1988. The data come from 

 letters received annually from each of the Phase II awardees on 

 their progress in obtaining funding for Phase III. 



For example, ThermoChem, Inc. of Columbia, Maryland, as a result 

 of a DOE SBIR project, has been awarded $37 million from DOE's 

 Clean Coal Technology Program and Wisconsin Power and Light to 

 demonstrate its pulse combustion technology for the efficient, 

 environmentally benign utilization of coal. The pulse combustion 

 process increases the heat transfer rate. The heated materials 

 (e.g. , coal or organic waste products) react with steam to 

 chemically disassociate, resulting in an environmentally clean 

 conversion of the coal into a clean-burning, hydrogen-rich gas. 

 A demonstration plant near Gillette, Wyoming is planning to 

 convert more than 400 tons of coal per day into a fuel gas with 

 an energy content 2-3 times higher than that produced by existing 

 systems. In another application, ThermoChem has installed a 

 system for the recovery of energy and process chemicals from 

 "black liquor," a waste product of paper production. Funding of 

 $9 million is being supplied by the Weyerhaeuser Paper Company, 

 the California Energy Commission, DOE, and others for a 



