We have been reporting periodically on the Coal liquefaction developments of Pittsburgh's old Gulf Oil Corporation, and their P&M Mining subsidiary, with much of their research having been done under contract to the US Office of Coal Research.
We regret that there appears to have been some, hopefully minimal, repetition; but, the sheer volume of Gulf's recorded work challenges our disabled capacities to organize and manage it all. And, we ask your patience as we proceed, to the best of our limited abilities, to wade through it in as orderly a fashion as is possible for us.
The disarray is compounded by the fact that Chevron, prior and subsequent to their acquisition of Gulf Oil, worked on the development of their own Coal conversion technologies, and obtained even more CoalTL science in their similar merger with Texaco.
Not long ago, we reported on "United States Patent 3,892,654 - Dual Temperature Coal Solvation Process"; the rights to which were assigned, in July of 1975, to both Gulf Oil's P&M Mining subsidiary, in Kansas, and the United States Government, since, as the patent specified, the "invention resulted from work performed under Contract No. 14-01-0001-496 between The Pittsburgh 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". Later, we detailed how, just months before issuance of that patent, Gulf and P&M had developed another, earlier variation on the solvent-based Coal liquefaction technology, again in service, under the very same contract, to the US Government, detailed as "US Patent 3,884,796 - Solvent Refined Coal Process".
In the document we enclose, via the link and attached file, with this dispatch, we see that Gulf Oil's Coal liquefaction development work for the US Government had been going on for even longer.
With comment appended, we present excerpts from:
"United States Patent 3808119 - Process for Refining Carbonaceous Fuels
Date: April, 1974
Inventors: Willard Bull and Bruce Schmid, KS
Assignee: Pittsburgh (misspelled, we believe, and should, in this case, be Pittsburg - JtM) and Midway Mining Company (which was a subsidiary of Pittsburgh, PA's Gulf Oil - JtM), KS; and, the United States of America
This invention results from work done under Contract 14-01-0001-496 with the Office of Coal Research in the Department of the Interior ... .
Abstract: An improved process for preparing a low-ash, low-oxygen, low-sulfur carbonaceous fuel wherein at least a portion of the available fraction of a carbonaceous containing ash, oxygen and/or sulfur is dissolved in a suitable aromatic solvent in the presence of a gaseous mixture comprising either carbon monoxide and steam or carbon monoxide, steam and hydrogen.
It is ... an object of this invention ... to provide an improved process for refining carbonaceous fuels which will yield liquid products having a higher hydrogen content.
Moreover, it is preferred that the aromatic solvent employed be derived from a carbonaceous material having the same or substantially the same composition as that being treated."
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To recap, and attempt to interpret, the meaning of our last excerpted statement, they prefer to use a primary Coal oil, as we have many times documented to be practical, as the solvent for the Coal.
And, the inventors note, in un-excerpted passages, that excess hydrocarbon gasses may be produced, even in, to their way of thinking, excess, as a co-product of their technology - another feature of some Coal conversion processes we have documented.
Further, again in en-excerpted passages, they note that their Hydrogen production procedure, an integral step in their overall Coal conversion process, wherein Hydrogen is produced via reactions between Carbon Monoxide and Steam to provide for the hydrogenation of the Coal liquids, is so effective that it might, in their words, lead to an initial "buildup in hydrogen gas", which is not detrimental and can be corrected by processing adjustments.
This is, in any case, further testament that our own US Government, and the Petroleum industry, not only know that our abundant domestic Coal can be effectively and efficiently converted into the liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels we need so desperately that we're willing to destroy ecosystems and compromise our nation's founding ideals, through subservient commerce with despotic regimes, to obtain; but, they have known that Coal can so supply our nations hydrocarbon fuels needs, as herein, for better than a quarter of a century.