We've reported on and referenced many times the ExxonMobil "MTG"(r), Methanol To Gasoline, process, and documented some earlier reports of the technology's development, including sequential documents from each company, Exxon and Mobil, prior to their merger, recording what seemed to be their independent development of carbon conversion techniques.
We've even suggested that, as Exxon and Mobil, separately, developed coal liquefaction and gasoline synthesis technologies, their congruent interests in coal conversion science, along with shrinking supplies of traditional petroleum resources, might have spurred their merger.
Herein, we present a document, and reference one we earlier sent you, that mark their trail even more clearly.
First, the technical Abstract of a US Patent, assigned to Exxon, for a process to produce Methanol, from Coal, as excerpted from the above link:
Title: Production of methanol via catalytic coal gasification
Author(s): Calvin, W.J.; Goldstein, S.S.; Marshall, H.A.
Date: September 1982; OSTI ID: 6787393; US Patent 4348487; Application 317358 filed November 1981
Patent Assignee: Exxon Research And Engineering Co
Abstract: Methanol is produced by gasifying a carbonaceous feed material with steam in the presence of a carbon-alkali metal catalyst and added hydrogen and carbon monoxide at a temperature between about 1000/sup 0/ F and about 1500/sup 0/ F and at a pressure in excess of a 100 psi to produce a raw product gas comprising methane, ... carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen and hydrogen sulfide. The raw product gas is withdrawn from the gasifier and treated for the removal of steam, particulates, hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide to produce a treated gas containing primarily carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane. The treated gas is separated into a methane-rich gas stream and a gas stream containing primarily carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The gas stream containing primarily carbon monoxide and hydrogen is passed to a methanol synthesis reactor where the carbon monoxide is reacted with the hydrogen in the presence of a methanol synthesis catalyst to form methanol. Methanol product is recovered from the effluent exiting the methanol synthesis reactor thereby leaving a gas comprised of carbon monoxide, hydrogen, methane and carbon dioxide. A portion of this gas is passed to a steam reforming furnace wherein at least a portion of the methane is reacted with steam to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide which is then passed from the steam reforming furnace into the gasifier. Preferably, at least a portion of the methane-rich gas produced in the separation step is used as fuel for the steam reforming furnace."
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Note, as an aside, that "methane-rich gas", which they propose using as both a co-reactant and a process fuel, is produced in their gasification system, and recall that technologies exist, such as "Tri-reforming", as reported by Penn State University, which can combine Methane with Carbon Dioxide in a CO2-recycling process that itself synthesizes higher hydrocarbons suitable for refining into liquid fuels.
In light of the above, also recall that, in an earlier dispatch, we reported on Mobil's later development of the technology to convert Methanol into Gasoline, as in "Aromatics, light olefins and gasoline from methanol", by Haag, et. al., of Mobil R&D in Princeton, NJ.
We know this dispatch is redundant, relative to the various other reports of Exxon and Mobil developments we've presented. But, the only way we have to emphasize the truth, the validity, of viable technology that would enable the United States to achieve liquid fuel self-sufficiency by utilization of her vast coal resources, is by repetition.
Just as Exxon and Mobil combined their names when they merged, we'll close by combining the titles of the two reports referenced herein: Consider this to be a disclosure of the technology to synthesize "gasoline from methanol (produced) via catalytic coal gasification".
That is, precisely, what it is.