A few days ago, we sent you information concerning: "United States Patent Application Publication Number US2010/0190874A1; for the "Catalytic Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide into Syngas Mixtures", a process for recycling Carbon Dioxide by converting it into hydrocarbon fuels, which is claimed jointly by inventors in Saudi Arabia and Texas.
We now believe, based on web-based references, and on the information we enclose herein, that the named inventors in that Application are all employed by "SABIC" - Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation - which has offices in Texas, among many other places; and, they may also be associated with "ARAMCO" - the Arabian American Company - which was long ago established to manage joint Saudi Arabian and US petroleum interests.
As we indicated in that previous dispatch, the technology disclosed in US Patent Application Publication Number US2010/0190874A1 is not the only process devised by Saudi and American scientists for recycling Carbon Dioxide in the synthesis of valuable hydrocarbons.
As accessible via the above-enclosed link and the attached file, we see that two of the same SABIC and/or ARAMCO scientists named as inventors in Application US2010/0190874A1 had earlier applied for yet another US Patent, titled almost identically, for closely related technology that enables the similar productive recycling of Carbon Dioxide.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent Application Number US 2010/0105962 A1 - Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide
Publication Date: April, 2010
Inventors: Agaddin Mamedov, Texas, and Abdulaziz Al-Jodai, Riyadh
Assignee: Saudi Basic Industries Corporation
Abstract: This invention relates to a process for making a syngas mixture containing hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, comprising a step of contacting a gaseous feed mixture containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen with a catalyst ... . This process enables hydrogenation of carbon dioxide ... (and) can be ... combined with other processes ... for making products like aliphatic oxygenates, olefins or aromatics.
(In other words, "products like" alcohols, and other raw materials from which gasoline and plastics can be made.)
Preferably, the carbon dioxide comes from a waste or recycle gas stream ... . Recycling such carbon dioxide ... thus contributes to reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere.
(From a Coal-fired power plant "waste ... gas stream", perhaps?)
The hydrogen may also originate from various sources, including streams coming from other chemical processes, like ethane cracking, methanol synthesis, or conversion of methane to aromatics.
The invention further relates to use of the syngas mixture obtained according to the invention as feed material for ... methanol production (and) Fischer-Tropsch reaction(s)."
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If you don't, by now, know that Methanol, as can herein be obtained from Carbon Dioxide, valuable liquid fuel that it, in and of itself, is, can be further converted, via, for one instance, ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) process, into Gasoline; or, that it can be used as the raw material for manufacturing a variety of useful plastics, wherein any CO2 consumed in the Methanol synthesis would be chemically, permanently - and productively - "sequestered", then you haven't been paying attention.
Moreover, if you don't, by now, know that the "Fischer-Tropsch" reaction, as above, was one of the two, along with the Bergius process, technologies Germany and Japan used, during WWII, to make Gasoline and Diesel fuels for their armies out of Coal, then you really haven't been paying attention.
So, we US citizens of US Coal Country have a choice:
We can either start "Recycling such carbon dioxide" that "comes from a waste or recycle gas stream", out of a Coal-fired power plant, for instance, into "feed material for ... methanol production (and) Fischer-Tropsch reaction(s)", and thus start to make all of the liquid hydrocarbon fuels we need domestically; or, just as, in the 1930's, we shipped all of our junked Chevy's and Ford's to Japan, so that they could be shot back at us as bullets during WWII, we can let all of our valuable Carbon Dioxide drift away in the Jet Stream to Saudi Arabia and Texas, and have it shot back at us via pipelines and tanker ships as synthetic liquid fuels.