Synthetical production of liquid hydrocarbons from carbon monoxide and hydrogen
We've submitted a number of reports detailing and documenting how, in the years leading up to WWII, various European and Asian entities were developing the technology for converting Coal into liquid hydrocarbon fuels, and reducing that technology to actual, even somewhat widespread, industrial practice.
One of those reports made more recently, for example, is now available as:
Czechoslovakia 1940 Coal Liquefaction | Research & Development | News
Herein, via the initial link in this dispatch, we see that similar Coal conversion developments were underway, in the same pre-WWII time frame, but much closer to home.
Comment, emphasizing a point that should be kept in mind, follows excerpts from the initial link to, and the attached file of:
"United States Patent 2,220,357 - Synthetical Production of Liquid Hydrocarbons
Date: November, 1940
Inventor: Michael Steinschlager, Germany
Assignee: Koppers Company, Pittsburgh, PA
Abstract: This invention relates to the synthetical production of liquid hydrocarbons by reacting gases containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide, in the presence of catalytic substances ... .
By the catalytic treatment of such gases, a certain quantity of gaseous reaction products, reaching from the simplest hydrocarbon methane up to the group of those higher hydrocarbons, which are often called "gasol", is formed, as well as the valuable hydrocarbons which are liquid or solid at normal temperatures and at normal pressure.
The main object of my present invention is to provide improvements in the said catalytical treatment of gases for producing hydrocarbons, so that the yield of the more valuable liquids ... is further increased and the costs of the catalytical treatment are substantially decreased.
(In the invention) hydrocarbons are converted with steam into carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
(And) carbon dioxide ... also reacts with the steam.
Furthermore, my invention utilizes the fact that the conversion gases formed ... contain hydrogen and carbon monoxide in a ratio most favourable for the catalytical synthesis of hydrocarbons.
They can ... be used without any objection for the synthesis of hydrocarbons.
Claims: A process for making liquid hydrocarbons by catalytically reacting (Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide in specified proportions, which are made by) alternate blows of air and ... steam through ... carbonaceous fuel.
(And) in which the steam and hydrocarbon vapors for the runs of ... water-gas comprise steam and coke oven gas."
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In honesty, "carbonaceous fuel" is as close as they come to using the four-letter word "Coal".
But, we do know from what, in Pittsburgh, PA, we would be making "coke oven gas", don't we?
Koppers actually describes a rather complex system in which gaseous products, including Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide, arising from an initial Steam-gasification of Coal, and/or from a more traditional Coke Oven, are reacted and re-reacted with more Steam, and with themselves, and made thereby, ultimately, to form a hydrocarbon synthesis gas very suitable in composition for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbons.
We don't want to attempt simplification of the complex process description; such effort is beyond our limited capabilities.
However, quite clearly, Steam and Carbon Dioxide are both being reacted with hot Coal, "carbonaceous fuel", and made thereby to generate hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
Though not specifically stated by Koppers, it looks to us as if, in confirmation of other, similar technologies we have already reported to you, that CO2 collected from outside the system can be added to the process.
Further, Koppers is careful to explain the system of heat exchangers within their process, clearly indicating that some of the exothermic reactions in the sequence can provide enough, perhaps more than enough, heat energy to drive any required endothermic reactions.
Basically, all of the energy needed to convert Coal and "coke oven gas" into a blend of Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide suitable "for making liquid hydrocarbons", is derived from the Coal itself.
And, we supposedly knew all of that in Pittsburgh, PA, more than seventy years ago.