Method of synthesizing liquid hydrocarbons
It has been known, as we have thoroughly documented for you, since award of the 1912 Nobel Prize to Paul Sabatier, that Methane can be synthesized from Carbon Dioxide.
It has also been known, again as we have documented, since the late 1800's, that Methane can be synthesized via the Steam-gasification of Coal.
We have also documented that multiple processes exist, some recently developed by representatives of the Big Oil cartel, which enable the conversion of Methane - whether obtained from Carbon Dioxide, as NASA plans to do on the planet Mars, or, from Coal - into Gasoline.
However, via the attached and enclosed document, we herein demonstrate that the United States of America has officially known, since the early years of WWII, that Methane can be so converted into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
It is also, like that previous Patent, an early version of "tri-reforming" technology, wherein Carbon Dioxide is reacted with Methane and Steam, and made thereby to synthesize hydrocarbons, which has been further developed more recently, again as we have reported, by scientists such as Chunsan Song and Craig Grimes at Penn State University.
Carbon Dioxide is, in such technologies, a required raw material for the synthesis of liquid hydrocarbons.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 2,243,869 - Method of Synthesizing Liquid Hydrocarbons
Date: June, 1941
Inventor: Percival Keith, et. al., NY
Assignee: M.W. Kellogg Company, NY
Our invention relates to a method of synthesizing liquid hydrocarbons and more particularly to a method of converting methane and like light hydrocarbon gases into hydrocarbons suitable for use as a motor fuel.
One object of our invention is to provide a method for synthesizing liquid hydrocarbons from light, low boiling gaseous hydrocarbons, such as methane.
Another object of our invention is to provide a commercially practicable and economical method of converting methane into liquid hydrocarbons suitable for use as motor fuel.
Fischer and Tropsch and others have synthesized hydrocarbons from mixtures of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. In the Fischer-Tropsch process, ordinarily solid fuels such as ... coal are subjected to the water gas reaction to produce a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen ... . ... The carbon monoxide and hydrogen are then reacted ... to form liquid hydrocarbons ... .
(So, this technology for converting "methane into liquid ... motor fuel" is actually derivative of, and based on, technologies for converting Coal, by subjecting it "to the water gas reaction to produce a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen" into " liquid hydrocarbons”.)
In general, our invention contemplates the oxidation of methane to form mixtures of carbon monoxide and hydrogen and the synthesis of the synthesis gas thus form into liquid hydrocarbons ... .
(And, folks, immediately following is the kicker. Don't miss it.
It is understood, of course, that ... only steam and carbon dioxide (need be) employed for converting methane into synthesis gas.
(Oh, "of course" we only need "steam and carbon dioxide" to convert Methane, which can itself be synthesized, via the Sabatier process, from Carbon Dioxide, "into synthesis gas".)
In copending application of Percival C. Keith, Serial No. 122,613, filed January 27, 1937, there is disclosed a method of forming synthesis gas from methane ... which synthesis gas has a ratio of carbon monoxide to hydrogen (that is) the theoretically correct mixture for subjection to the Fischer synthesis.
Claims: A method of converting light hydrocarbon gases into liquid hydrocarbons ... ."
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And, that method consists of reacting those "light hydrocarbon gases" with Carbon Dioxide.
We have, yet again, known, as herein officially, that, via a combination of the 1912 Nobel-winning Sabatier process, and the US Government-certified technology disclosed herein by a company that is now a component of the Texas-based oil industry services company, Kellogg