We have extensively documented the Coal gasification conversion expertise of the former Texaco, now a component of Chevron.
Since, in a very recent report, we documented that the United States Environmental Protection Agency had utilized a Texaco Coal Gasification facility to, in the process of gasifying Pittsburgh Seam Coal, clean up and convert into hydrocarbon synthesis gas the toxic wastes left by a California petroleum refinery, we thought it timely to submit this report of their advanced technology for, as they put it, improving "the economy and efficiency of ... producing large volumes of synthesis gas comprising principally hydrogen and carbon monoxide", from a variety of organic substances.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 3,620,698 - Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide from ... Solid Carboniferous Fuels
Date: November, 1971
Inventor: Warren Schlinger, et. al., CA
Assignee: Texaco, Inc., NY
Abstract: Production of synthesis gas from a slurry of particulate solid carboniferous fuels, e.g., petroleum coke, coke from bituminous coal, coal, oil shale, tar sands, pitch, or mixtures of these materials in water or in a hydrocarbon liquid fuel. ... By this process, pumpable slurry feeds of low-cost solid carboniferous fuels may be gasified in a synthesis gas generator without being preheated.
Claims: A partial oxidation process for producing synthesis gas (from) solid carboniferous fuel (slurried) in a "a liquid vehicle selected from the group consisting of water, hydrocarbon liquid fuel, and mixtures of water and said hydrocarbon liquid fuel (wherein) the hydrocarbon liquid fuel ... is selected from the group (which includes) coal oil ... and wherein said solid carboniferous fuel is selected from the group consisting of petroleum coke, coal, coke made from bituminous coal, oil shale, tar sands, pitch, and mixtures (thereof).
Summary: It is therefore a principal object of the present invention to improve the economy and efficiency of the continuous partial oxidation process for producing large volumes of synthesis gas comprising principally hydrogen and carbon monoxide and containing controlled amounts of particulate carbon (and to) utilize directly as feedstock in the partial oxidation process for producing synthesis gas pumpable slurries containing up to 75 wt. percent of low-cost particulate solid carboniferous fuels."
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In sum, this is yet more advanced technology for the conversion of Coal, and other Carbon, into an hydrogenated synthesis gas suited for further catalytic conversion, as, for instance, via the Fischer-Tropsch process, into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Moreover, it is, we submit, the very same technology employed by the US EPA, as in our earlier report, to clean up, and to convert into synthesis gas, toxic wastes left in California soil by a petroleum refinery.
And, remember: As in that earlier report, that petroleum refinery-contaminated California soil was mixed with Pittsburgh Seam Coal to make the clean-up, and the resource recovery, possible.
