Herein, we find even more evidence that the petroleum industry, and our own United States Government, have known for a very long time that Coal can be converted, one way or another, into liquid hydrocarbons.
As with other Coal conversion technologies that were developed on all sides, as we've reported, in the decade leading up to WWII, the technology disclosed herein would likely be uneconomical even in today's OPEC-influenced world.
In fashion similar to other Coal liquefaction processes from the same era, the complicated process described would likely demand much more energy input than the output could justify.
Still, it is further testament that, even eighty years ago, we knew that, one way or the other, we could convert our abundant Coal into the liquid hydrocarbons which, although they were abundant and cheap at the time, were clearly finite in amount; and would, eventually, be used up.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 1,838,548 - Valuable Products from Solid Carbonaceous Materials
Date: December, 1931
Inventor: Robert Haslam, et. al.
Assignee: Standard-I.G. Company
Abstract: The present invention relates to the art of producing valuable products from carbonaceous materials, particularly coal ... .
While the present process is preferably operated on ashless or deashed coal or other carbonaceous material, such materials are not required ... .
Claims: An improved process for obtaining ... valuable heavy oil from coal."
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We forego reproduction of the involved technical details. What some might find interesting in them is that the described method involves a step, as part of the liquefaction and purification of raw Coal, which is detailed as a solution process, wherein mineral impurities are removed, extracted, from the raw coal feed. The residual Carbon is then processed - in something of a reversal, as our limited capacities allow us to understand it, of other systems wherein it is the Carbon that is extracted, with the minerals left as the residue.
Regardless: Eighty years ago, we knew, as herein officially, that we could obtain "oil from coal".
