Process and apparatus for the hydrogenation of carbonaceous materials
We've previously documented the war-time Coal liquefaction prowess and activities of Germany and Japan, which extended even to their many Asian and European CoalTL installations being designated as specific, and high-priority, targets of strategic bombing by the Allied Command.
As we recorded for you, United States Patents had been issued to German scientists for Coal liquefaction technology just prior to, and even during the initial outbreak of, fighting on the European continent; and, rights to those patents were subsequently consigned to a custodian of alien property, pending resolution of the hostilities.
Herein, we see that such WWII-era development of Coal conversion and synthetic fuels technology wasn't limited just to the core Axis nations.
Even Czechoslovakia got into the act.
Comment follows very brief excerpts from the enclosed link to and attached file of:
"United States Patent 2,207,494 - Process ... for the Hydrogenation of Carbonaceous Materials
Date: July, 1940
Inventor: Vaclav Viktora
Assignee: Czechoslovakian Nitrogen Works Company, Ostrava, Czechoslovakia
Abstract: In the majority of the known processes of hydrogenating coal and carbonaceous raw materials, the starting material is led, either separately or together with hydrogen, through a heat exchange device and preheater into the reaction chambers, several of which may be arranged one behind another. Here the hydrogenating gas is caused to flow through the raw materials (which may be mixed with catalyzers) or the latter are led with the hydrogen over a stationary catalyzer or over surfaces having a catalytic activity.
(Note: Prior to WWII, a scientist in a country somewhat on the outskirts of the most modern and developed centers of western technological activity could speak knowledgeably about a multiplicity of "known processes of hydrogenating coal". Why is it we, in the Coal industry heart of the most technologically advanced country in the world, now, seventy years later, haven't, for the most part, even heard of it?)
Claims: In apparatus for the hydrogenation of carbonaceous materials, a circulation system (and) a reaction medium (and) a separator ... for separating the part of the reaction medium removed from the system into the normally gaseous and liquid portions."
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Simply put: As confirmed herein by our own United States Government, it was known, in central Europe, fully seven decades ago, how to convert Coal into "gaseous and liquid" hydrocarbons.