Process for separating gas mixtures more particularly coke oven gas
We have already documented, in several earlier reports, the development of Coal conversion and liquefaction technology, before and during WWII, by the Axis powers, Germany and Japan.
Herein, we submit further evidence that their Coal conversion technologies - - which, as we have previously demonstrated, were reduced to such effective industrial practice that their seven factories, scattered about Europe and Asia and converting Coal into liquid fuels for the Axis militaries, became high-priority strategic targets of Allied bombing - - were no secret to us prior to the onset of war.
We were plainly and openly informed that, not only was Germany - and, by extension, Japan - able to convert Coal into liquid fuels; but, they were improving both their ability to do so and the efficiencies of the processes they utilized.
Comment follows very brief excerpts from the link to, and the attached file of:
"United States Patent 1,913,805 - Process for Separating ... Coke Oven Gas
Date: June, 1933
Inventor: Helmuth Hausen, Germany
In separating gas mixtures by partial condensation ... it is important to utilize ... the heat of vaporization of the separated-out components ... otherwise the ... consumption of energy (becomes) too high.
The utilization of the heat of evaporation of the separated condensates is effected by withdrawing the condensates from the mixtures of gases from which they have been separated and bringing them into heat exchange with the incoming mixture of gases ... .
Claims: (A) process for the separation of gas mixtures containing hydrogen, such as coke oven gas, by partial condensation."
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The full Disclosure is far too technically dense to allow further, intelligible, direct excerpts to be made.
In essence, Hausen describes a complete industrial process wherein, first, Methane, and, then, Carbon Monoxide, and, finally, Hydrogen, are separated out of gas mixtures which, he continuously explains only by way of example, can be made in a Coke oven.
We make the assumption that his Disclosure is so difficult to understand because he is only, as he explains, improving "a process which is" already, in 1933 "employed on a large scale for the purpose of producing synthetic ammonia".
That "synthetic ammonia" process was, without doubt, based on Coal; and, we remind you that, as we have several times documented, one of the primary goals China now has designed into her current ambitious Coal liquefaction industrialization plans is the co-production of fertilizer - presumably based on ammonia generated during the gasification of Coal with Steam and Air.
One of Hausen's improvements on the ammonia production process is, that, instead of allowing and promoting the reaction between Nitrogen, the major component of the air used to gasify Coal, and the Hydrogen generated by the Steam-gasification of Coal, that Nitrogen can - - after the Hydrogen, Carbon Monoxide and Methane are separated out, and, presumably, directed into the catalytic condensation of liquid hydrocarbons - - be used within the process as a medium of heat exchange between different, exothermic and endothermic, reaction components of the total system.
That is a potential we have, from later expositions of US-developed indirect Coal conversion technologies, wherein Coal is first hydro-gasified, specifically documented to be feasible.
The whole Disclosure stands as evidence of the fact that the science and technology, for converting abundant Coal into the raw materials for liquid hydrocarbon synthesis, were, at one time, many decades ago, well-known and well-understood.
They were even being practiced.
All of which leads to some inescapable questions - questions that are, by now, so obvious we won't try your patience further by asking them.