http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-08062003-145234/unrestricted/chpt5-2.pdf
We believe the author of the enclosed thesis to be one Doowhan Lee, who, after earning a PhD at Virginia Tech, with the enclosed dissertation, according to online sources, went on to become a Professor of Chemical Engineering, at the University of California, Berkeley; and, a Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in California, before returning to Korea and joining the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology.
In any case, while at Virginia Tech, this accomplished scientist helped to advance our knowledge of how two greenhouse gases, Carbon Dioxide and Methane, could be reacted to together to synthesize valuable hydrocarbons.
Additional, we think important, comment follows excerpts from Lee's thesis, which is maintained and presented by Virginia Tech as the chapter of a larger book, as in:
"Catalytic Reforming of CH4 with CO2 in a Membrane Reactor: A Study on Effect of Pressure
In this chapter, a membrane reactor study on the CH4 reforming with CO2 is presented.
The results ... (were used) to evaluate the effect of hydrogen separation in improvement in yields of the products (H2 and CO).
A rhodium catalyst supported on Al2O3 was used in this work.
The reforming of CH4 with CO2 was carried out both in a hydrogen separation membrane reactor (MR) and a packed-bed reactor (PBR) of the same annular geometry.
In the MR, the experimental conversions of both CH4 and CO2 in the MR were higher than the conversion obtained in the PBR for all the pressures and temperatures ... ."
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The full dissertation is technically dense, and we close our excerpts here by summarizing, simply, that Lee and his co-workers were developing an improved method of reacting two greenhouse gases, Carbon Dioxide and Methane, which can itself be made, via the Sabatier process, from Carbon Dioxide, together, with their oft-stated goal being to create "enhancements in the yields of CO and H2"
And, as we have many times documented, gaseous blends of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen are better known to us as Synthesis Gas, or Syngas, from which, using Fischer-Tropsch and related processes, liquid hydrocarbons can be generated.
Moreover, as we will document in a dispatch soon to follow, Lee's co-workers took the technology disclosed herein one step further and acquired, for Virginia Tech, a United States Patent on such technology to reform, to recycle, Carbon Dioxide with Methane to synthesize higher hydrocarbons.
Our guess is that a number of informed people at Virginia Tech now agree with some scientists at Penn State who, as we've quoted, believe that "Burying CO2 is ridiculous".