Process for the production of hydrogen
In our dispatch of 5/28/10, we documented how, in 1943, during WWII, a United States Patent had been awarded for Coal conversion technology - "Patent 2,337,551 - Producing Gas Mixtures for Synthetic Purposes" - to inventors resident in Japanese-occupied China, and was then vested in the Custodian of Alien Property.
As it happens, one of the two named inventors in that patent, prior to the onset of war, had actually shown us, in the United States, how to make an hydrogenated synthesis gas out of Coal, by using Steam.
And, he did so pretty close to home.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 1,926,587 - Process for the Production of Hydrogen
September, 1933
Inventor: Fritz Hansgirg, Vienna, Austria
Assignee: American Magnesium Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA
Abstract: This invention relates to a process for the production of hydrogen from steam ... .
The decomposition of water by means of incandescent carbon, as in the production of water gas, takes place according to the following equation: 2C + 2H2O = 2CO + 2H2."
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We close our excerpts here, since the full patent description takes some interesting twists. First, though, Hansgirg's equation could, and for us should, be rewritten as: "Coal + Steam = Hydrogen-Rich Syngas".
And, once we have such Hydrogen-enriched Syngas, a simple pass over catalysts based on Iron Group metals, perhaps mixed with or supported on zeolite minerals, will condense that Syngas into liquid hydrocarbons, as in the Fischer-Tropsch, Sasol, and other indirect Coal conversion technologies.
The interesting twists American Magnesium takes in all of this are that they didn't want the Syngas, just the Hydrogen. So, the patent goes on to describe how co-production of Carbon Monoxide can be suppressed, in favor of co-producing Carbon Dioxide, which can then be more easily separated from the Hydrogen.
