Herein, we submit disclosure of one of the basic, US-patented Coal liquefaction technologies owned by the world's premier manufacturer of liquid fuels from Coal: South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited, SASOL.
We have often referenced SASOL, and their commercialized Coal liquefaction technologies, over the long course of our reportage. Specifics of their Coal liquefaction expertise include the fact that airliners from around the world have been refueled for many years, at South Africa's Johannesburg Airport, with Coal-based aviation fuel that is fully-certified by international authorities.
Our reports concerning SASOL have also included the fact that their domestic Coal liquefaction industry was originally founded on CoalTL technology developed and reduced to practice during WWII by Germany.
That would seem to be no longer the case.
If the technology disclosed in the United States Patent for Coal liquefaction we submit herein, which was issued to SASOL back in 1982, is what they now use to convert Coal into liquid transportation fuels, then they are now employing, on a commercial basis, in South Africa, a Coal liquefaction process based mostly on technologies developed in the United States of America.
Though not, due to formatting constraints, reflected in our excerpts, SASOL - (in the course of their full, formal Disclosure, as accessible via the enclosed link, and we urge you to check it out and follow up on their precedent patent references) - reveal that their current Coal liquefaction technology is only a refinement on such technology that had already been developed by Exxon, and, by Pittsburgh, PA's former Gulf Oil Corporation.
The Gulf Oil and Exxon references, if you follow up through the link and check them out, won't be new to you, if you have followed our posts to the West Virginia Coal Association thus far.
Aside from one, which we will explain via separate dispatch to follow in coming days, full reports concerning them are already recorded in the Coal Association's R&D Blog.
Additional comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent 4,318,797 - Process for Converting Coal into Liquid Products
Date: March, 1982
Inventor: Berend Jager, et. al., South Africa
Assignee: SASOL, South Africa
Abstract: The invention provides a process and an apparatus for hydrogenative liquefaction of coal to produce high yields of gasoline fraction and optional yields of diesel and residue fraction, all of superior quality. The coal is slurried and digested in two separate and distinct streams. The parting oil of the first stream is heavy residue fraction derived to a substantial extend from the second stream, mixed with light oil derived partly or wholly from the first stream. The pasting oil of the second stream is middle oil derived from the fractionated discharge of the first stream, any shortfall being made up from the discharge of the second stream. A high degree of flexibility is possible by varying the ratio of coal fed to the respective streams between 3:1 and 1:3, and individual manipulation of the process parameters within each stream in respect of pressure, temperature, catalyst, residence time, pasting oil composition and coal quality.
Claims: Process for converting a liquefiable coal directly into predominantly liquid products suitable for making hydrocarbon fuel by slurrying the comminuted coal in a pasting oil and digesting the slurried coal under hydrogenative conditions ... (and) wherein the pasting oil is composed substantially of light oil and heavy or residue fraction, including a heavy or residue fraction derived from coal ... .
A process for converting a liquifyable coal directly into predominantly liquid products suitable for making hydrocarbon fuel by slurrying the comminuted coal in a pasting oil and digesting the slurry coal under hydrogenative conditions and fractionating the digested slurry by distillation to produce a light oil fraction, a middle oil fraction, and a heavy oil fraction ... ."
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The full Disclosure is lengthy and detailed, and we are compelled to summarize what we believe to be the gist of it:
In essence, they dissolve raw Coal with a Coal oil derived from the process itself, and, through their specified subsequent processing, produce a variable range of liquid products. And, the processing can be adjusted so as to result in either predominantly Diesel fuel or Gasoline refinery feeds - depending on market need.
In any case, and we again urge you to examine the full Disclosure and to follow up on it's reference links, the world's premier manufacturer of liquid fuels derived from Coal has based it's current, US-patented Coal conversion technology, in large part, on technology that had already been developed by United States petroleum companies.