United States Patent: 3988237
We have documented several times previously the Coal hydrogenation plant operated by the old Union Carbide Corporation, just south of Charleston, WV, some decades ago.
And, we have cited one or two of the Union Carbide scientists named in this United States Patent previously, in documentation of other Coal conversion innovations resulting from their Charleston-area activities.
Our purpose in this dispatch is to again document that the Hydrogen needed to hydrogenate primarily carbonaceous Coal can be expediently obtained from Water.
At the understood risk of redundancy, with comment appended, we submit excerpts from:
"United States Patent 3,988,237 - Integrated Coal Hydrocarbonization and Gasification of Char
Date: October, 1976
Inventor: Hubert Greenridge Davis, et. al., Charleston, WV
Assignee: Union Carbide Corporation, 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: In a process employing two separate and interconnected fluid-bed reaction zones, a first zone for gasification ... wherein ... char particles are gasified with steam ... to produce modified char particles and a first hydrogen-rich gas product; (and) wherein ... larger ash particles from said second zone provide the heat required to effect the gasification reaction in said first zone by ... transferring their sensible heat to said char particles and said steam ... .
(And) continuously introducing said char particles into said first zone for gasification with steam ... (and) condensing the condensable vapor in said vapor product to recover a heavy oil (and) separating a light oil boiling ... and a second hydrogen-rich gas product from said vapor product.
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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In sum, we can get "liquid and gaseous fuels" by reacting Coal char and Steam in a process wherein "ash particles" generated in one of the steps "provide the heat required to effect the gasification reaction"; and, such "gaseous and liquid fuel products" can thus be produced, from Coal and Water, "in an efficient, economical and continuous manner".
Too bad that such an "economical and continuous" production of "liquid fuel products", from Coal and Water, as was being practiced in Charleston, West Virginia, somehow proved so discontinuous, ain't it?
