Throughout the Disclosure of this United States Department of Energy technology for hydrogenating, "hydrocracking", Coal, in order to synthesize more versatile hydrocarbon fuels and chemical manufacturing raw materials, you will see continuous reference to the need for "hydrogen", or, "hydrogen-containing gas".
Don't be misled. Any needed Hydrogen can be produced as an integral function of the overall process; a fact revealed by one passage buried deep with the full document, and which we present now, by way of introductory foreword, as follows:
"The hydrogen-containing gas can be hydrogen, hydrogen mixed with a diluent gas, synthesis gas including hydrogen and carbon monoxide or a gas having components which will react to produce hydrogen such as a mixture of carbon monoxide and steam."
Steam we can make: Just fire up some Coal and boil some Water with it.
Carbon Monoxide we can make as well: Just fire up some Coal and blow Carbon Dioxide over it.
We have documented that fact for you many times, perhaps most recently in our report concerning "United States Patent 4.040,976 - Process of Treating Carbonaceous Material with Carbon Dioxide", which is a technique developed in 1977 by Cities Service Company, out in Oklahoma, wherein, as they put it: a "mixture of carbon dioxide and a carbonaceous material, such as coal, is rapidly heated in a reactor, giving a gaseous effluent comprising carbon monoxide".
In any case, once we have, courtesy of Coal, Carbon Dioxide and Water, that Steam and that Carbon Monoxide, we can, according to the United States Department of Energy, do some pretty-darned interesting things with them - by reacting them with even more hot Coal.
Comment follows excerpts from the above link to:
"United States Patent 4,225,414 - Hydrocracking Carbonaceous Material to Provide Fuels
Date: September, 1980
Inventor: Dennis Duncan, IL
Assignee: The United States of America
Abstract: A process is disclosed for hydrocracking coal or other carbonaceous material to produce various aromatic hydrocarbons including benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, phenol and cresols in variable relative concentrations while maintaining a near constant maximum temperature. Variations in relative aromatic concentrations are achieved by changing the kinetic severity of the hydrocracking reaction by altering the temperature profile up to and quenching from the final hydrocracking temperature. The relative concentration of benzene to the alkyl and hydroxyl aromatics is increased by imposing increased kinetic severity above that corresponding to constant heating rate followed by immediate quenching at about the same rate to below the temperature at which dehydroxylation and dealkylation reactions appreciably occur. Similarly phenols, cresols and xylenes are produced in enhanced concentrations by adjusting the temperature profile to provide a reduced kinetic severity relative to that employed when high benzene concentrations are desired. These variations in concentrations can be used to produce desired materials for chemical feed stocks or for fuels.
The invention described herein was made in the course of, or under, a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Claims: A method of hydrocracking particulate coal entrained in a flow of hydrogen-containing gas ... to produce benzene, toluene, xylenes ... .
Background: The present invention relates to processes for hydrocracking coal and other solid or liquid carbonaceous material. ... Such processes produce a spectrum of products including alkanes and the aromatic compounds such as benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, phenol and cresols. Although lignite and bituminous coal are important starting materials, various other solid and liquid carbonaceous materials including anthracite coal, wood, peat, ... lignin, ... and other related materials can be processed. In addition various liquids including anthracene, decalin, tars, bitumens, asphaltenes, condensed aromatics, derivatives of these materials, and other high boiling compounds may be advantageously processed by the method of this development.
Summary: (It) is an object of the present invention to provide a method of hydrocracking carbonaceous material in which the relative amounts of aromatic hydrocarbons can be varied.
It is also an object to provide a method of hydrocracking carbonaceous material that can be easily altered to produce various aromatic feedstocks for chemical processing or for blending as high octane stock in motor vehicle fuels.
The hydrogen-containing gas can be hydrogen, hydrogen mixed with a diluent gas, synthesis gas including hydrogen and carbon monoxide or a gas having components which will react to produce hydrogen such as a mixture of carbon monoxide and steam."
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In sum, our own US Government not only knows of, but owns the rights to, a process, that, by combining Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide, which can be made from Coal, Carbon Dioxide and Steam, with more hotCoal, enables the production of such things as "benzene, toluene," and "xylene"; which, we urge you to look up and see for yourself, are better known by the shorthand "BTX", and are, in fact, primary raw components from which modern oil refineries blend Gasoline.
Not only that, but:
The Objects of this invention are "to provide a method of hydrocracking" Coal "in which relative amounts of aromatic hydrocarbons" produced by the invention's process "can be varied" by "easily" altering the process so as to "produce various aromatic feedstocks for chemical processing or for blending as high octane stock in motor vehicle fuels".
Note, too, that Coal-derived tars and Coke Oven byproducts, such as "anthracene, decalin, tars, bitumens," and "asphaltenes" can be used in this process, along with, as in many other Coal conversion technologies we've reported for you, Carbon-recycling renewable resources such as "wood" and "peat".
In sum, as we have documented previously:
If there is anything we now derive from conventional petroleum, i.e. fuels or chemical manufacturing feed stocks, that we want safer, more reliable, and less expensive supplies of, we can make it, any and all of it, efficiently, from Water, Carbon Dioxide, and Coal.