In a recent report, on July 24, we disclosed that scientists at the University of Witwatersrand, in South Africa, had applied for a United States Patent on technology that serves to convert Carbon Dioxide into Gasoline.
We speculated that they had devoted themselves to the research and development effort in support of their domestic Coal liquefaction specialist, SASOL, South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited, who, from multiple facilities, supply much of South Africa's vehicular fuel needs by liquefying Coal.
SASOL, as it happens, didn't need the help.
Via the enclosed link and attached file, with comment appended, we present excerpts from:
"United States Patent Application 2008/0027150 - Hydrocarbon Synthesis
Publication Date: January 31, 2008
Inventor: Andre Peter Steynberg, South Africa
(Although inventor affiliations and corporate owners of patent rights aren't identified in US Patent Application Publications, other web-based resources clearly identify Steynberg to be one of SASOL's Research and Development Directors.)
Abstract: A process for synthesizing hydrocarbons include feeding a gaseous feedstock comprising hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, into a dimethyl ether (DME) synthesis stage, and in the DME synthesis stage, converting a portion of the gaseous feedstock into a DME product and gaseous products. The DME product is separated from unreacted gaseous reactants and the gaseous products to obtain a tail gas comprising hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The tail gas is fed into a Fischer-Tropsch hydrocarbon synthesis stage, and the hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are allowed to react catalytically ... to form hydrocarbons.
The process typically includes recycling some of the ... tail gas ... to obtain high overall CO+CO2 conversions."
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The full Disclosure is technically dense - or, "rich", as we've come to think of it - and it begs study by those qualified to explain it's full implications to the rest of us.
Basically, it confirms information we've earlier reported and documented from other credible sources, stating that: Carbon Dioxide can be added to a synthesis gas composed primarily of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen, as can be manufactured by advanced techniques of Coal hydro-gasification, to enrich that synthesis gas and enable it's further, productive catalysis into DME - which is, as we've earlier reported, an excellent substitute Diesel fuel - and, using tail gas from the DME reactor to then feed a Fischer-Tropsch reactor, wherein more hydrocarbons are formed.
And, note: The full Disclosure reveals that, in the DME reactor, the CO2-enriched syngas is first converted into Methanol, and the Methanol is then processed to form the DME.
Methanol is, as we have many times documented, a valuable resource. It can serve as the raw material for the manufacture of a variety of plastics, wherein the CO2 consumed in it's synthesis would be permanently sequestered, and it can, through ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) technology, be further converted into Gasoline.
Thus, in this SASOL technology, two streams of Gasoline raw material could be derived from a Carbon Dioxide recycling process - one from the Methanol-DME reactor and one from the Fischer-Tropsch catalytic condenser; a Carbon Dioxide recycling process that is enabled, through the production of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen by the, likely Steam-, gasification of Coal.
