United States Patent: 4727207
We earlier reported on US Patent 4704496, a "Process for Converting Light Hydrocarbon to More Readily Transportable Materials"; in essence, a Methane conversion technology.
That patent was assigned to the Standard Oil Company in Cleveland, OH; and, so is the similar-sounding, almost to the point of being redundant, one we enclose in this dispatch, a disclosure of the:
"Process for converting methane and/or natural gas to more readily transportable materials
United States Patent 4727207
Inventors: Christos Paparizos, Wilfrid Shaw
Date: February 23, 1988
Assignee: Standard Oil Company; Cleveland, OH
Abstract:
The invention relates to a process for converting light hydrocarbon feedstocks such as methane and/or natural gas, to higher molecular weight hydrocarbon products that are more readily handleable and transportable. The process comprises heating a gaseous mixture comprising said light hydrocarbon feedstocks and carbon dioxide at a temperature of at least about 600 degrees C for a period of time effective to provide said higher molecular weight liquid hydrocarbon product. The invention also relates to the higher molecular weight liquid products obtained by the process of the invention.
Claims:
1. A thermal process for converting a feedstock comprising methane and/or natural gas to liquid hydrocarbons comprising heating a gaseous mixture comprising said feedstocks and at least about 2% by volume of carbon dioxide to a temperature of at least about 1000 degree C for a period of time effective to provide said liquid hydrocarbons.
2. The process of claim 1 wherein the feedstock comprises methane, and carbon dioxide is added to form the gaseous mixture.
3. The process of claim 1 wherein the feedstock comprises natural gas containing at least about 2% by volume of carbon dioxide.
4. The process of claim 3 wherein from about 0.1 to about 25% by volume of carbon dioxide is added to the natural gas.
Description:
This invention relates to a thermal process for converting methane and/or natural gas to liquid higher molecular weight products. This invention further relates to the use of carbon dioxide to assist such conversions where the yield of liquid products is enhanced."
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So, we can add up to "25% by volume of carbon dioxide" to the natural gas, as the patent reveals in the course of it's full disclosure, to enhance the productivity of the conversion process.
Interestingly, this patent calls for the addition of CO2 in quantities based on the amount of the CO2 already present in the natural gas. There always is some.
Unspecified is how much Carbon Dioxide could, and should, be added to pure Methane, as would be produced by the Sabatier recycling of CO2, in the first place, to generate such pure Methane; instead of a natural gas mixture that already includes a sometimes significant amount of naturally-occurring Carbon Dioxide.
Recall, too, that Methane can be produced from various technologies of Coal gasification, as in our earlier reports of US Patent 3847567, for a "Coal Hydrogasification Process", and, of the US Bureau of Mines' "Synthane Coal-to-Gas Process".
In any case, here again a technology has been in place for more than two decades, a technology which could have been employed to utilize our own abundant domestic energy resources, including one most commonly labeled a greenhouse pollutant, to free ourselves from economic indenture to overseas oil.