CHARLESTON — Ramaco Carbon, a Wyoming-based coal technology company, plans to have a research facility open in the Charleston area within the next month, according to Chairman and CEO Randall Atkins.
The company has secured a location for its Charleston base of operations in the West Virginia Regional Technology Park, Atkins said.
“We are getting a lease next week on it,” he said. “We’ve picked out space. We’re picking out lab equipment, and I’m hopeful that we can probably be in there, frankly, by the end of next month.”
The company had initially announced plans for a “tentative” spring opening of a Charleston location, but discovered a space to suit its needs earlier than expected, Atkins said.
“The space is pretty much ready to go,” he said. “We pretty much just need to get equipment and staff. The state is being very helpful to us on both fronts.”
The company’s presence in the state is expected to start off small, with around 10 employees, and grow as research progresses, Atkins said.
“We’ll have a number of lab technicians and then our senior lab guy there,” he said. “Then, as we grow the research activities and grow into the larger scale testing, we will go from there.”
The company’s headquarters in Sheridan, Wyoming, is budgeted for 20 to 25 employees this year, Atkins said.
“Certainly, I’d look at a similar number for West Virginia,” he said. “Once we move from the lab to the pilot phase, that increases the number. Then, of course, the ultimate goal is to go into actual manufacturing.”
The process highlighted in Justice’s State of the State address uses coal to create a product that can be turned into carbon fiber, Atkins said.
“The carbon fiber activity for us is essentially to create what is called a mesophase pitch that can be used as a precursor to make carbon fiber,” he said. “We think we have the technology to do that starting with different types of coal.”
Ramaco has done some “initial testing” with coal mined in Wyoming, Atkins said.
“We will also be testing some of the West Virginia coals,” he said.
The mesophase pitch is a substance resembling “taffy or honey” that can then be “baked” into sheets of carbon fiber — a lightweight, extremely strong material with numerous applications, Atkins said.
After honing the technique for turning coal into carbon fiber, Ramaco hopes to be involved in the development of a manufacturing industry that would utilize the product, Atkins said.
“We haven’t formally decided, but we think perhaps the end goal will to be to go ahead and become a manufacturer,” he said. “Assuming that material is accepted into the market, we could then go into the commercial production phase.”
West Virginia is a “natural home” for what Ramaco wants to accomplish, Atkins said.
“I think it’s natural, not just for carbon fiber, but we’re interested in exploring a number of different research areas for building products and even for life sciences,” he said. “The proximity to some of the medical research activities that are going on at the two universities (West Virginia University and Marshall University) — I think will be very helpful.”
On Jan. 22, Ramaco announced it had hired Christopher Yurchick to serve as director of research for its operations in Sheridan and Charleston.
“Christopher is the perfect person to help us build this future, with an unparalleled combination of scientific prowess, management experience and understanding of research commercialization and development,” Atkins said. “We’re expanding our vision of the Carbon Valley to both the East and the West and are very excited to work with Christopher in realizing it.”
Yurchick, who spent more than a decade working in joint academic and industrial ventures and has 15 years of experience in carbon science and intellectual property development, said he is excited to lead the initiative for Ramaco.
“Ramaco is a company with the ideal vision to change the world of coal and carbon materials, and we look forward to building a new industry which converts the carbon in coal into a wide range of high-quality products,” he said.
In recent years, Ramaco Carbon has built a national network of research support at universities, scientific institutes, the Department of Energy National Labs and other government organizations to support the fast-evolving field of “coal-to-products.”
The DOE announced last September that Ramaco was the recipient of a sub-recipient of over $5 million in new federal grants to support the efforts.
The company is also in its second year as the industry partner on a separate $5 million DOE-funded grant project in Wyoming nicknamed “Coal to Cars.” The project is aimed at using coal as a precursor to lower the cost of manufacturing carbon fiber for use in the automotive industry.
Ramaco is also now a partner with the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh on a variety of joint coal-to-product research products.
Senior Staff Writer Charles Young can be reached at 304-626-1447 or [email protected]
