Since we are sending along today, via separate dispatch, report of, among other things, "US Patent 7,726,127 - Solar Power for Thermochemical Production of Hydrogen; 2010; Assignee: Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Incorporated, CA"; wherein is disclosed how Hydrogen can be effectively and economically generated by the use of inexhaustible solar energy, we wanted to, in this dispatch, emphasize how such Hydrogen could be beneficially applied to the upgrading of liquid hydrocarbons derived from Coal.
Note that such Coal liquid upgrading is, or can be made to be, fully compatible with conventional, already established and practiced, petroleum refining, and petroleum distribution and storage, techniques.
As disclosed by yet another California entity, the Carbon conversion work of which we have previously cited, but as explained by scientists from New Jersey, in our excerpts from the link to:
"United States Patent 4,221,654 - Hydroprocessing Coal Liquids
Date: September, 1980
Inventor: Thomas Stein, et. al., NJ
Assignee: Electric Power Research Institute, CA
Abstract: Compatibility of solvent refined coal and other coal liquids with conventional petroleum fuels is improved by moderate catalytic hydrogenation of the solvent refined coal liquid to a hydrogen to carbon atomic ratio less than that of corresponding petroleum fractions. As degree of hydrogenation of solvent refined coal is increased, compatibility with petroleum fractions of like boiling range increases ... .
Claims: A liquid fuel comprising a mixture of a petroleum fraction and a liquid derived from coal which is a blend of solvent refined coal boiling above about 650F and recycle solvent, the said blend having been reacted with hydrogen in the presence of hydrotreating catalyst at a severity to provide hydroprocessed blend of recycle solvent and solvent refined coal having a hydrogen content of 7.5 to 10 weight percent hydrogen.
The invention is concerned with treating solvent refined coal (SRC) to render the same compatible with the conventional liquid fuels derived from petroleum. In normal commercial channels of distribution and use as fuel, liquids resulting from solvent refining of coal will be conveyed by the same pipelines, tank cars, trucks and barges as are petroleum fractions of the same grade and will be stored in the same bulk plants and user tanks. It is ... economically impracticable, to clean all such facilities before each shift from one type of product (SRC or petroleum fraction). Even less attractive is the prospect of providing segregated distribution and storage facilities; in effect duplicating the huge and expensive capital plant to serve the vast demand for liquid fuels, both distillates and residual fuels.
The only practical and economically acceptable system is to use existing distribution and storage facilities for both SRC and petroleum fractions as SRC becomes a source of commercial liquid fuels. In order that both products may move freely in commercial channels responsive to supply and demand, it is necessary that they be mixed on occasion.
A fuel ... wherein said hydroprocessed solvent refined coal has a hydrogen content of 8.5 to 9.5 weight percent."
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We close our excerpts here so that we can emphasize a few things:
First, the "hydrogenation of the solvent refined coal liquid", as above, could well, if the Coal liquid consisted primarily of the Coal oil, Naphthalene, result in the synthesis of the Coal liquefaction solvent, Tetralin, which is, we believe, a key component of WVU's West Virginia Process for the direct liquefaction of Coal.
The full Disclosure does, in fact, reveal that hydrogenated Coal liquids are to be used in the "solvent refining" or more raw Coal.
Second, the entire purpose of the technology disclosed herein seems to be to improve the compatibility of "coal liquids with conventional petroleum fuels", as stated above, so that they can be blended and processed together in conventional petroleum refining, handling and storage facilities.
That purpose is achieved by hydrogenating the Coal liquids, and, Hydrogen is required, just as it is required for the hydrogenation, the hydro-processing, of some crude petroleum.
That Hydrogen can be obtained, in an economical way, by the process of "US Patent 7,726,127", as above.
And the end result is, then, that Coal, as herein affirmed by the US Government, can be a "source of commercial liquid fuels" which can "move freely in commercial channels".