The title of this half-century-old US Patent, "Production of Carbon Monoxide", is, we must contend, like many others we have brought to your attention, deliberately misleading.
The Patent reveals, instead, without question, a technology wherein both Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen, an hydrocarbon synthesis gas, in other words, can be efficiently generated by reacting Coal with Steam.
Moreover, even the full Disclosure is, in some respects, we again contend deliberately, misleading, since it frequently refers to Oxygen and Oxygen-containing gases, which, though needed, are not the keys of this technology.
Comment follows brief excerpts from the link to, and attached file of:
"United States Patent 2,879,148 - Production of Carbon Monoxide from a Solid Fuel
Date: March, 1959
Inventor: Harold Atwell, NY
Assignee: The Texas Company
Abstract: This invention relates to a process for the generation of carbon monoxide from a solid carbonaceous fuel. In one of the more specific aspects, this invention relates to an improved method for the production of a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen from a solid carbonaceous fuel.
Gasification of coal to carbon monoxide is an industrially important operation. Coal and related solid fuels may be reacted with a restricted quantity of oxygen ... to produce carbon monoxide.
Steam is ... an auxiliary reactant serving ... to produce hydrogen.
One of the objects of this invention is to provide an improved process for the generation of carbon monoxide and hydrogen from a solid carbonaceous fuel ... .
Claims: A process for the generation of carbon monoxide and hydrogen from ... coal."
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This United States Patent described, in other words, more than fifty years ago, an efficient way to manufacture a hydrocarbon synthesis gas from Coal and Water.
It is efficient since, though not reflected in our excerpts, the full disclosure relates, in a way similar to other, like processes we have documented for you, how all, or nearly all, of the energy required by the total system can be obtained from certain specific steps within the overall process.
And, finally, lest the significance escape you: Once we have Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen, passage of those mixed gasses over a Fischer-Tropsch, or related, catalyst will condense them into Hydrocarbon liquids suitable for refining into Gasoline and Diesel fuels - just as Germany and Japan, as we've documented, did on a wide industrial basis during WWII; just as SASOL, in South Africa, using a related catalytic technology, is doing today.
We have known, in the United States of America, since 1959, that we could produce a raw material with which we can synthesize Gasoline from Coal and Steam, using a process that requires the input of no externally-supplied energy.
