Integrated coal hydrocarbonization and gasification of char - Patent 3988237
We have several times documented for you the Union Carbide Corporation Coal conversion factory that operated for a time, just outside of Charleston, WV, some decades ago.
Herein, we present a US Patent owned by Union Carbide, now a part of Dow Chemical, for a process of Coal conversion that was invented and developed by four of Carbide's West Virginia experts in the technology.
Some excerpts from the enclosed link, as follows:
"Integrated coal hydrocarbonization and gasification of char
United States Patent 3988237
Date: October 26, 1976
Inventors: Davis, Hubert Greenidge; Albright, Charles William; et. al. (St. Albans, WV and Charleston, WV)
Assignee: Union Carbide Corporation (New York, NY)
Abstract: An integrated continuous process for the production of liquid and gaseous fuels wherein coal particles are hydrocarbonized with a hydrogen-rich gas supplied by a gasification process employing two separate and interconnected zones for combustion and gasification and wherein char produced by the hydrocarbonization of the coal particles provides the feed for the gasification zone.
Claims and Background: This invention relates to an integrated and continuous process for producing gaseous and liquid products from coal wherein hydrogen is reacted with coal in a fluid bed hydrocarbonization zone to form char, gaseous and liquid products and wherein the char formed is fed to a fluid-bed gasification zone to generate all the hydrogen-rich gas required for the reaction with coal in the hydrocarbonization zone:
Summary: It is an object of this invention to provide a process for producing gaseous and liquid fuel products from coal in an efficient, economical and continuous manner. Another object of this invention is to provide unusual benefits by integrating a gasification process with a hydrocarbonization process. Still another object of this invention is to provide a process whereby a char by-product may be gasified at elevated pressures to generate the hydrogen necessary for maintaining fluidization and reaction within a hydrocarbonization zone."
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The entire patent is very complete, very complex and very well-thought out, down to the fine points of reclaiming heat generated by specific reaction steps to help drive other reactions, and to obtaining the Hydrogen needed, for hydrogenating the carbonaceous Coal-derived products, from reactions of Coal char.
The technical details are beyond our scope; but, they invite study, and translation for the rest of us, by qualified people.
This process, for transforming Coal into "gaseous and liquid fuel products", was operated for a time near Charleston, WV. It was invented, and then reduced to commercial practice, by West Virginia residents.
Why it's practice ceased should, we insist, be a subject of interest and scrutiny for West Virginia journalists.
The year this patent was awarded, 1976, was the bicentennial celebration our Independence from foreign domination. As herein, perhaps the declaration of another sort of independence, from another sort of foreign domination, went publicly unnoticed, unheralded, uncelebrated.
