http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD465948&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
The document we enclose herein, via the above link and attached file, was, at one time, apparently, as we interpret the various statements within it, classified as "Secret" by our United States Government.
Though it reports work completed by the USAF Wright-Patterson Base in 1965, it wasn't cleared for public distribution until 1972.
Which is sort of odd, since it only, in essence, confirms what the Nobel Committee affirmed 60 years prior, in the award of their 1912 Prize in Chemistry to Paul Sabatier:
Carbon Dioxide can be effectively reclaimed and recycled into Methane.
Additional comment, recapping the critical importance of Methane, follows relatively brief excerpts from:
"Catalytic Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Methane and Water
G. A. Remus, et. al.; General American Transportation Corporation
Foreword: This report sunmarizes the work accomplished under contract AF 3"(615)-1210, for research on catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to methane and water This work was performed under project 6146, "Atmosphere and Thermal Control",- and task 614622, "Oxygen Recovery From Carbon Dioxide." The
effort was initiated on 6 January 1964 and completed 31 December 1964, by the NRD Division of the General American Transportation Corporation, 7501 Natchez Avenue, Niles, Illinois 60648. The work was monitored by Lt. Derry W. Marshall, Environmental Control Branch (FDFE), Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory, Research and Technology Division, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Abstract: A literature search was conducted to determine suitable candidate catalysts for the Sabatier reaction. A test system was designed and fabricated for evaluating the candidate catalysts material to select an optimum catalyst.
(The) optimum catalyst was determined to be ruthenium metal powder ... . The minimum temperature required with this catalyst to provide over 99% conversion of CO2 was 357 F, at one atmosphere ... .
During a thirty-day duration test with ruthenium metal-powder CO2 conversion remained essentially at 99%, and the catalyst remained unchanged. A short period of intermittent injection of H2S gas into the feed gas line did not affect performance. Operation at reduced pressures down to 5 psia caused- only a 2% decrease in CO2 conversion ... .
Objective: The overall objective of this project was to develop a catalyst that would efficiently promote the Sabatier process, i.e., reduction of carbon dioxide with hydrogen at low temperature to form water and methane in high yields.
Conclusions: On the basis of the combined phases of the complete program to determine an applicable low temperature-high yield catalyst for promoting the Sabatier reaction, the following conclusions have been reached: The optimum catalyst was determined to be pure ruthenium metal powder.
With this catalyst ... complete (>99%) single-pass conversion of CO2 was achieved."
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And, we remind you, as in our one recent report, out of many similar, now posted on the West Virginia Coal Association's R&D site as: WVU CO2 + CH4 = Hydrocarbon Syngas | Research & Development | News,
wherein is revealed: "New Catalysts for Syngas Production from Carbon Dioxide and Methane; Mahesh V. Iyer; Thesis submitted to the College of Engineering and Mineral Resources at West Virginia University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Chemical Engineering. 2001"; Methane, once we have it, as synthesized, perhaps via the US Air Force technology disclosed in this dispatch, from Carbon Dioxide, can be combined with even more Carbon Dioxide and made thereby to generate a synthesis gas well-suited for catalytic condensation into a variety of liquid hydrocarbons, fuels.
Although free Hydrogen is required in the technology disclosed by the Air Force herein, please keep in mind that isn't really a problem. Such free Hydrogen is already made and employed on a practical basis in many conventional petroleum refineries to upgrade their products. There are, as we intend to further document in future reports, economical ways to produce it in addition to those several we have previously reported to you.
And, in any case: The cost of producing Hydrogen, in order to convert a supposed greenhouse pollutant, into and through Methane, ultimately into liquid hydrocarbons, must be offset against the costs of OPEC extortions; the loss of national wealth being transferred overseas; the devastations of oceanic and coastal environments; and, the hugely expensive, in terms of money and lives, waging of oil region wars.
Carbon Dioxide, as arises in a small way, relative to natural sources of emission, such as volcanoes, from our varied and productive uses of Coal, is a valuable raw material resource. We can reclaim it and transform it into useful, and, almost, it seems, desperately needed hydrocarbons.