In a previous dispatch, posted August 16 of this year, we reported on: "US Patent 2,522, 468 - Production of Synthesis Gas; September, 1950; Assignee: Standard Oil Development Company, DE", wherein it was seen that, more than half a century ago, the US petroleum industry, as confirmed by our US Government technical experts, had devised a process for, as they put it: "continuously forming a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen ... suitably proportioned for use as a feed-gas in the synthesis of hydrocarbons ... which consists essentially (of reacting together) ... a mixture of methane, steam and carbon dioxide".
We note, again, that Standard Oil scientists would, by 1950, have been well-aware of the fact that the 1912 Nobel Prize was awarded to Paul Sabatier, for demonstrating that Methane could itself be synthesized from Carbon Dioxide.
And, they would also have known that Methane can, as well, be synthesized by the Steam-gasification of Coal, as was widely practiced, as we've documented, by numerous municipalities in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, to produce what was commonly known as "Town Gas".
In this report, we see that yet another of the Standard Oil derivative companies, in the very same year, and again as confirmed by our US Government technical experts, had devised yet another process for recycling Carbon Dioxide by reacting it with Methane and Steam, and thereby producing hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 2,500,516 - Hydrocarbon Synthesis
Date: March, 1950
Inventor: Morris Carpenter, IL
Assignee: Standard Oil Company, Chicago
Abstract: This invention relates to an improved method and means for effecting the synthesis of hydrocarbons from carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
(An) object of this invention is to provide an improved system for converting hydrocarbon gases ... into normally liquid ... hydrocarbons.
(In the process) methane ... is ... mixed with such proportions of carbon dioxide and steam to give a gas mixture having an atomic hydrogen:carbon:oxygen ratio of 4:1:1.
The basic equations (are): CO2 + 3CH4 + 2H2O = 4CO + 8H2 ... .
The proportions of carbon dioxide and steam may ... be adjusted (to yield different ratios of carbon monoxide and hydrogen)."
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The full Disclosure is lengthy, and is actually concerned more with how the Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen synthesis gas - once it is produced by combining Carbon Dioxide with Methane and Water - is processed and catalytically condensed into liquid hydrocarbons.
It also notes that, as somewhat indicated in our above excerpts, the proportions of the gas mixture, especially Carbon Dioxide and Steam, can be adjusted, with the result being that Methane and Ethane are produced, or reproduced, as byproducts of downstream processing, and can then be recycled back into the system to react with more Carbon Dioxide and Steam.
But, to sum it up:
Given that these Standard Oil scientists in Chicago, by 1950, as herein, would have known that the Nobel Committee had affirmed, in 1912, that Methane could be synthesized from Carbon Dioxide, via the process invented by Paul Sabatier, we have in this United States Government-confirmed technology a complete system, if the Sabatier process were to be integrated into it, wherein Carbon Dioxide could be, with the addition of Water, recycled into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
