Herein, we see that Japanese scientists successfully devoted themselves to the task of reducing the costs of converting our abundant Coal into needed hydrocarbons.
The did so by finding a way to efficiently hydro-gasify lower-grade, lower-cost Coal, to form hydrocarbon synthesis gas, by utilizing inexpensive chemicals to catalyze and promote the Coal gasification process.
Comment follows excerpts from the link to:
"United States Patent 4,848,983 - Catalytic Coal Gasification by Utilizing Chlorides
Date: July, 1989
Inventor: Akira Tomita, et. al., Japan
Assignee: Tohoku University, Sendai
Abstract: A process of catalytic coal gasification characterized by mixing an inexpensive, low rank coal with an aqueous solution of inexpensive, widely existing alkali metal or alkaline earth metal chlorides, such as NaCl, KCl, or the like; adding a pH adjustor such as ammonia to the resulting mixture ... whereby an ion exchange is effected between said metal and hydrogen in the coal, thereby loading only metals as a catalyst on the coal; washing the coal with water to remove chloride by-products; and running steam onto the catalyst-loaded coal at high temperatures and high pressures.
Claims: A process of catalytic coal gasification by utilizing chlorides, comprising: mixing a coal with an aqueous solution of a chloride of at least one metal selected from the group consisting of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals; adding a pH adjustor to the resultant mixture of the coal and the chloride solution to maintain a pH value in the range between 5 and 12, whereby an ion exchange is effected between (those)metal(s) and hydrogen in the coal, thereby introducing only said metal(s) as a catalyst into the coal in an amount of 1.about.10% by weight based on the coal; washing the coal with water to remove chlorides secondarily produced by said ion exchange; and running a gasifying agent at a temperature of 500 (to) about 800C ... to effect a catalytic coal gasification reaction.
A process ... wherein the gasifying agent is at least one gaseous substance selected from the group consisting of steam and mixtures of steam with at least one gas selected from the group (which includes) carbon dioxide ... .
Summary: An object of the present invention is to provide processes of catalytic coal gasification, utilizing chlorides, which processes comprise using alkali chlorides, as a material for catalyst, which are inexpensive but are inactive substance per se for coal gasification reactions, and removing chlorine from the chlorides in a catalyst preparation step, to prepare highly active gasification catalysts.
Further object of the present invention is to manufacture synthetic gases and town gases by effective coal gasification processes."
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In case you missed the point:
Japan added table salt, the "NaCl", as specified above, to a "coal gasification reaction", wherein Coal is gasified with "steam (and) with at least one gas selected from the group (which includes) carbon dioxide", in order to produce "synthetic gases", which, we assure you, can be catalytically condensed, via the venerable Fischer-Tropsch, and related or similar processes, technique into a variety of liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
We can hydro-gasify Coal, to make such hydrocarbon synthesis gas, by using Steam, Carbon Dioxide that we would otherwise have to spend money to get rid of, and, a pinch of Salt.