Method for gasifying lignite
As in many of our more recent posts, we herein continue to document that any needed Hydrogen, required to hydrogenate Coal and other materials, which, like Coal, are composed primarily of Carbon, in order to synthesize hydrocarbon gases and liquids suitable for further processing into fuels; or, for the manufacture of plastics; in other words, into products serviceable as direct replacements for anything we need now supplied by petroleum; can be generated from reactions between Steam and hot Coal.
Moreover, the required Coal can be of almost any grade, as the enclosed, almost 70 years-old US Patent, from Minnesota, of all places, attests. That fact has some, perhaps important, implications for states, like West Virginia and Pennsylvania, where they have been mining Coal for a long time.
As we further explain, following excerpts from:
"United States Patent 2,276,343 - Method for Gasifying Lignite
Date: March, 1942
Inventor: Lloyd Ryerson and Donald Gernes, Minneapolis
Assignee: University of Minnesota
Abstract: The present invention relates to the treatment of lignite for the production of gaseous products, particularly hydrogen.
We have discovered that when lignite is heated the water which it contains in its natural state forms steam (and when) the heating is carried out (so that the) steam ... traverses hot freshly charred lignite, a reaction ensues at relatively low temperature (which) liberates a relatively large quantity of mixed gases in which hydrogen is a major constituent ... .
We have discovered that the reaction ... may be carried out at relatively low temperatures without undue sacrifice of gases produced. In this feature our reaction and method differentiates sharply from methods using coal or coke, for these require high temperatures to obtain commercially acceptable yields ... (which) causes a large percentage of carbon monoxide to be produced... .
It is ... an object of this invention to provide such a process ... for producing ... hydrogen ... from lignite."
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First, our Minnesota inventors reveal that using this technology on "coal or coke" causes a "large percentage of carbon monoxide to be produced".
How unfortunate. Of course, we could combine the Carbon Monoxide so produced from our West Virginia bituminous coal with the Hydrogen produced, as herein, from their Minnesota lignite coal, and cause some Fischer-Tropsch magic to happen, but:
The point herein is that lignite has a higher intrinsic moisture content than bituminous coal; a deficiency which can be mitigated by simply adding water to bituminous coal, in which case we would be able to produce a combination of Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide ideal for catalysis into liquid hydrocarbons.
Moreover, lignite, though an organic-rich solid mineral, in addition to having a relatively higher moisture content, also naturally has a relatively higher content of inorganic ash than cleaned bituminous coal. Such descriptive features are also characteristic of many older Coal mine waste accumulations throughout the Appalachian Coal fields; refuse piles which often contain high percentages of what are commonly described to be "shaly coals" and "coaly shales" that just weren't suitable for shipment to the steel mills of Wheeling and Pittsburgh; but, which, very much like mid-western lignite, still contain significant quantities of Carbon mixed with inorganic minerals. Further, such waste accumulations, having lain exposed for many years, likely now contain all of the intrinsic moisture which was a characteristic of the Minnesota lignite used in the process described by this invention.
Thus, opportunity might exist, using this University of Minnesota technology, to actually reclaim some older mine wastes that are most often seen as sometimes dangerous, and always unsightly, sources of groundwater pollution. We remind you, in that regard, of the planned Schuykill, PA, project, about which we have reported, wherein the wastes of old anthracite mines are projected to be so harvested.
In any case, and in sum: If we need additional Hydrogen to hydrogenate Coal, and products derived from Coal, so that we can synthesize hydrocarbons to replace those we're currently dependent upon OPEC and Big Oil for the supply of, we can make it from Coal, too.
