The patented General Electric technology for hydrogenating Coal, in order to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels, which we reveal herein, relates, somewhat sadly, both to another report, concerning South Africa and China, we're posting today, and, thus, to another, concerning GE and China, we'll be sending along tomorrow.
It also, though, serves to confirm a fact that we have otherwise been documenting:
Via one process or another, the Hydrogen needed to hydrogenate the primarily Carbon content of Coal, in order to synthesize liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, can be obtained from Water through the employment of by-products, co-products or incremental products of the overall Coal conversion process.
We have also reported that most known primary processes of Coal conversion result in some carbonaceous residues, "char", being left un-reacted. Those residues, of various direct and indirect conversions, again as we've documented, have, in different ways, been further processed to extract even more hydrocarbon values.
General Electric proposes, and the United States Patent Office agrees, that, instead, such carbonaceous residues could actually be utilized to help obtain, in an indirect way, the Hydrogen needed to hydrogenate the Coal, as an auxiliary function of the Coal conversion process.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 3,556,749 - Apparatus and Method for the Hydrogenation of Coal
Date: January, 1971
Inventor: Henry Spacil, NY
Assignee: General Electric Company, NY
Abstract: The conversion of coal into methane by reaction thereof with hydrogen gas ... wherein the hydrogen gas required is supplied by the dissociation of water vapor. Power for the dissociation is generated in a power station in which carbonaceous char, which is a by-product of the coal hydrogenation ..., and air, which may be enriched with oxygen produced (from the water vapor) during the dissociation are burned."
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That is the sum of it; the rest is technical exposition. We can burn the Coal conversion residues to generate the electricity needed to split the water, and to thus obtain the Hydrogen needed to hydrogenate the Coal.
As a bonus, Oxygen is also produced when we split the Water, and we can use it to help burn the Coal conversion residues, and thus to more efficiently generate the electricity that splits the Water.
It is, we assert, another of the many "synergies" available to us in processes for converting Coal into hydrocarbons.
Another bonus: Although an appreciable variety of hydrocarbons can be synthesized from Coal by utilizing the Hydrogen manufactured in General Electric's process, Methane is the one they specify in the Patent Abstract. Methane can be catalytically condensed into liquid hydrocarbons, gasoline, as we've documented in other reports. But, Methane can, as well, be combined, as explained best for us so far by Penn State University, with reclaimed Carbon Dioxide, in bi-reforming and tri-reforming reactions, and thereby made to synthesize even more liquid hydrocarbons while recycling an accused greenhouse pollutant.
In essence, again: We can convert Coal into direct replacements for the liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons our nation is currently dependent on; and, all we need, in terms of energy and raw materials, to manufacture those hydrocarbons are Water and Coal.
