United States Patent: 3615300
The need for concision might have made our headline a little misleading.
In this Chevron Coal liquefaction technology, Coal liquefaction residue from a primary Coal conversion process, is, indeed, being hydrogenated so that it, too, can be further processed into liquid hydrocarbons.
However, at the same time, the hydrogenation reaction of the CoalTL residue is generating excess Hydrogen, which can then be utilized to further hydrogenate the liquid products of the primary Coal conversion process.
As a foreword, one excerpt might help to illustrate that, and will serve to emphasize that this is, indeed, a coal conversion technology, as follows:
"According to the preferred embodiment of the present invention, a residue from a coal extraction process is used as the carbonaceous feed to the steam-carbon reaction zone, and the hydrogen which is generated is in turn used within the coal extraction process ... to obtain from the coal a substantial yield of valuable hydrocarbon products ... such as gasoline and fuel oil."
Such further processing of Coal conversion residue has, as we've earlier reported, been developed in research programs funded by the US Government. However, that residue recycling was most usually accomplished at processing sites removed from the original Coal conversion facility, and any excess Hydrogen that might have been generated by processing of the residues could thus not be employed in the further hydrogenation of the original Coal liquids.
Chevron's technology overcomes that inefficiency, as further illustrated in our excerpts from:
"United States Patent 3,615,300 - Hydrogen Production by Reaction of Carbon with Steam
Date: October, 1971
Inventor: Melvin Holme, et. al.
Assignee: Chevron Research Company, California
Abstract: A process for producing a hydrogen-rich gas mixture ... (by) contacting subdivided carbonaceous matter with steam and oxygen in a reaction zone (at specified conditions), withdrawing the hydrogen-rich gas mixture from the reaction zone, and ... feeding sufficient steam to the reaction zone so that the hydrogen-rich gas mixture which is withdrawn from the reaction zone contains at least 60 volume percent steam."
----------
We close our excerpts here since the lengthy technical descriptions are beyond our scope; and, since we've given the purpose of this invention away in our forwarded excerpt.
Basically, this petroleum company, Chevron, developed a technology wherein any carbonaceous residues produced by a primary Coal liquefaction process could be hydrogenated into additional hydrocarbon liquids; and, wherein, at the same time, additional Hydrogen is generated by that process, Hydrogen which can then be used to further hydrogenate the Coal-derived liquids generated by the initial conversion of raw Coal.
And, as our US Government herein acknowledges, they had all of that figured out, forty years ago, in California.
