United States Patent: 3892654
We have lately been documenting the accomplishments of Pittsburgh's old Gulf Oil Corporation, and their Pittsburg(KS) & Midway Mining subsidiary, in the development of Coal liquefaction technology.
As we have reported, much of their CoalTL work seems to have been done under contract to, and to have been paid for by, the United States Government.
That is true of this invention, as well; confirmed both in the assignment of rights and by the following statement excerpted from the body of the text:
"This invention resulted from work performed under Contract No. 14-01-0001-496 between The Pittsburgh (misspelled, we believe - JtM) and Midway Coal Mining Co., a subsidiary of Gulf Oil Corporation, and the Office of Coal Research in the Department of the Interior entered into pursuant to the Coal Research Act, 30 USC 661 to 668".
And, we believe there to be even more evidence of Government involvement, as one of the inventors, Gerald Pastor, is stated to be resident in "Takoma", - another misspelling - Washington. Tacoma is the site of Fort Lewis, where, as we have reported, the US Government once operated one of their several Solvent Refined Coal (SRC) pilot plants.
Additional comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 3,892,654 - Dual Temperature Coal Solvation Process
Date: July 1, 1975
Inventors: Charles Wright (KS) and Gerald Pastor (Takoma, WA)
Assignee: The United States of America
Abstract: A solvation process for producing deashed solid and liquid hydrocarbonaceous fuel from coal. Raw coal is slurried with a solvent comprising hydroaromatic compounds in contact with hydrogen in a first zone at a relatively high temperature to dissolve hydrocarbonaceous fuel from coal minerals by transfer of hydrogen from hydroaromatic solvent compounds to hydrocarbonaceous material in the coal. The solvent is then treated with hydrogen in a second zone at a lower temperature to replenish the solvent with hydrogen. Forced cooling of the slurry between zones accomplishes many significant improvements in the process.
Claims: 1. A process for preparing deashed solid and liquid hydrocarbonaceous fuel from ... coal ... .
Description: This invention relates to a non-catalytic liquid solvent dissolving process for producing reduced or low ash hydrocarbonaceous solid fuel and hydrocarbonaceous distillate liquid fuel, from ash-containing raw coal. Preferred coal feeds contain hydrogen, such as bituminous and sub-bituminous coals, and lignites. The process produces deashed solid fuel (dissolved coal) together with as much coal derived liquid fuel as possible, with an increase in liquid fuel product being accompanied by a decrease in solid fuel product. Liquid fuel is the more valuable product but the production of liquid fuel is limited because it is accompanied by production of undesired by-product hydrocarbon gases. Although liquid fuel is of greater economic value than deashed solid fuel, hydrocarbon gases are of smaller economic value than either deashed solid fuel or liquid fuel and have a greater hydrogen to carbon ratio than either solid or liquid fuel so that their production is not only wasteful of other fuel product but is also wasteful of hydrogen."
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We close our excerpts here because of what we perceive to be the, perhaps deliberate, fallacy promoted in the "Description".
Who should accept the fact that the co-production of "hydrocarbon gases", from Coal, is "wasteful of hydrogen", and thus "undesired"?
According to this patent, "the production of liquid fuel" from Coal "is limited" only "because it is accompanied by production of" to our US Government researchers "undesired ... hydrocarbon gases".
So, if we're willing to give up some purified coke, "deashed solid", we can get more liquid fuel and hydrocarbon gases from Coal?
And, that's a bad thing?
Those hydrocarbon gases can be further catalyzed, through multiple available technologies we've documented in our posts, into even more liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Moreover, if those hydrocarbon gases include Methane, as we presume them to, that Methane can be used, in bi-reforming and tri-reforming processes, such as explained by Song and Grimes at Penn State University, to recycle, to react with, reclaimed Carbon Dioxide in the synthesis of higher hydrocarbons.
Our instinct is that, almost obviously, this patent is worded in such a way as to disguise the genuine utility of the disclosed Coal conversion technology; and, since the technology was developed by, for and with the US Government, we'll presume it to be deliberately so worded and, thus, so obfuscated.
