WV Coal Member Meeting 2024 1240x200 1 1

China Recycles CO2

 

You should now be aware, from our posts, at least, of China's ambitious Coal-to-Liquid industrialization plans. There are conflicting news reports about their resolve to continue with those plans, wherein, with West Virginia University's documented assistance, they will be implementing the "West Virginia Process" for liquefying coal into chemical manufacturing raw materials, and petroleum diesel and gasoline replacements.
 
Nonetheless, they have been at work studying and developing follow-on technologies to take advantage of the by-products generated by their already-extensive use of coal in steel making, power generation and chemical manufacturing.
 
They, too, like NASA and the US Navy, as we've documented, see potential in recovering and recycling the Carbon Dioxide by-product of coal use, as the enclosed report confirms.
 
The excerpt:
 
"Study on the carbon dioxide hydrogenation to iso-alkanes over Fe–Zn–M/zeolite composite catalysts 

Bai Rongxian, Tan Yisheng and Han Yizhuo

State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030001, China

Abstract

Synthesis of iso-alkanes from carbon dioxide hydrogenation was investigated over Fe–Zn–M/Zeolite composite catalysts. The effects of different promoter metals (M=Cr, Mn, Zr, Al, La) and zeolites on the performance of carbon dioxide hydrogenation were studied. The structure and the acidity of zeolites were investigated. It was found that Zr had a better promotional effect than other additive metal components for the iron-based catalyst. The catalyst had different catalytic performances with different zeolites and the distribution of hydrocarbon products was influenced by the acidity of the zeolite. The HY zeolite was the most effective one for iso-alkane synthesis due to its medium-strength and strong acid sites, which could be observed through temperature-programmed desorption of ammonia."

This is, actually, pretty detailed stuff. In essence, they seem to be tweaking a zeolite catalyst, as used by Exxon-Mobil in their MTG(r) coal-to-methanol-to-gasoline process, by assessing the effects of different metal ion additives. They are, in other words, fine tuning a process, a process based on one for converting coal into liquid fuels, that they already know  works. They are making the process more efficient, practical and profitable.

"Iso-alkanes", by the way, according to very general web-based resources, would include paraffin and kerosene. Without citing references, it appears that paraffin can be "cracked" into gasoline components, and kerosene itself serves as a pretty dandy jet fuel.

Also interesting to note, isn't it, that China has a "Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion" and an "Institute of Coal Chemistry"? They seem to take the potentials for coal conversion pretty seriously.