United States Patent: 4659743
We have cited the US Government's Coal scientists, Rao and Gormley, named herein as the inventors, previously.
As with many of our reports, the technology disclosed in this 33 years-old United States Coal Conversion Patent doesn't tell us how to efficiently liquefy Coal; it being, for us, a given that we can do so. But, it is a disclosure of a variation on indirect Coal conversion technology that might allow us to do it more efficiently, and with, perhaps, some opportunity to target synthesis of a more variable range of hydrocarbon products having a greater range of utilities and applications.
But, there are some other implications, as well, as we explain in brief comment following selected excerpts from:
"United States Patent 4,659,743 - Process ... for Converting Synthesis Gas to Liquid Hydrocarbon
Date: April 21, 1987
Inventors: Udaya Rao and Robert Gormley; Pittsburgh, PA
Assignee: The United States of America
Abstract: Synthesis gas containing CO and H2 is converted to a high-octane hydrocarbon liquid in the gasoline boiling point range by bringing the gas into contact with a heterogeneous catalyst including, in physical mixture, a zeolite molecular sieve, cobalt ..., and thoria ... . The contacting occurs at a temperature of 250.degree-300.degree C, and a pressure of 10-30 atmospheres. The conditions can be selected to form a major portion of the hydrocarbon product in the gasoline boiling range with a research octane of more than 80 and less than 10 percent by weight aromatics.
The present invention relates to a method for converting synthesis gas containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen to hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for fuel use or as feedstock in petrochemical industries. The invention also relates to catalysts in which mixtures of metals having reductive catalytic activity are dispersed within a crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve. In particular the process involves production of high octane, liquid hydrocarbon products that are in the gasoline boiling range. The present catalyst and method selectively produce branched aliphatic hydrocarbons rather than aromatics to obtain a high octane product.
Description: The present invention relates to a method for converting synthesis gas containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen to hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for fuel use or as feedstock in petrochemical industries. The invention also relates to catalysts in which mixtures of metals having reductive catalytic activity are dispersed within a crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve. In particular the process involves production of high octane, liquid hydrocarbon products that are in the gasoline boiling range. The present catalyst and method selectively produce branched aliphatic hydrocarbons rather than aromatics to obtain a high octane product.
In response to the shortage of petroleum products in the past several years, there has been substantial interest in the conversion of coal to both liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon products. Much work has been done in the area of coal gasification by reaction with water and oxygen to produce carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide as well as of other gases. It is well known that these gasification products can be converted to valued hydrocarbons for use as motor fuels, petrochemical feedstocks and fuel gases."
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Our scoffing at the statement that it "is well known that (Coal) gasification products can be converted to valued hydrocarbons for use as motor fuels, petrochemical feedstocks and fuel gases" aside, the basis of this Coal conversion patent, for technology developed by and for the Government of the People of the United States of America, appears to be the use of an "aluminosilicate" "zeolite molecular sieve" catalyst.
We submit that ExxonMobil publicly states the basis of their "MTG"(r), methanol-to-gasoline, technology, wherein the Methanol is posited to be made from Coal, is the use of a proprietary Zeolite, aluminosilicate, catalyst, which, from the scant public descriptions available, could be interpreted to be, or to serve as, a "molecular sieve".
Is this, we are compelled to ask, yet another instance where Coal-to-Liquid conversion technology has been developed by "We the People", through research and development supported by US Taxes, only to be shanghaied and subverted by corporate interests that are not coincident or congruent with the best interests of United States private citizens, especially those US citizens resident in US Coal Country?
Seriously: How is it that Government labs in Pittsburgh, PA, developed and patented a Coal conversion technology which, by reports, seems being reduced to commercial practice, and openly promoted, by major petroleum commercial interests, and even then only in overseas, foreign venues?