Upon reflection, we think the report we make herein might be of some special significance.
Aside from a few obvious points, which we don't hesitate to belabor, the Disclosure of this invention reveals truly significant improvements in the economics of Coal conversion.
It deserves serious study and consideration.
As we recently confirmed, in: Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development | News; technologies conceptually similar to the 1912 Nobel-winning Sabatier process, wherein Carbon Dioxide can be recycled, and converted into Methane, CH4, exist.
And, such technologies are, in some places, being further developed and improved.
Since we are, today, via separate dispatch concerning additional developments in Iran, documenting yet again that Methane - once we have it, perhaps as synthesized, via the above-noted Penn State technology, or similar, from CO2 - can be "reformed" with even more Carbon Dioxide, and made thereby to synthesize higher, more valuable hydrocarbons; we wanted, in this report, to confirm yet again that such CO2-derived Methane can also serve, as seen in a few of our earlier reports, in the hydrogenation, and the liquefaction, of Coal.
And, such confirmation comes to us from the impeccable source of the US Department of Energy, as represented by two of it's Brookhaven, NY, National Laboratory scientists; both of whom we have cited several times previously.
As you will see, as we indicated above, there are other interesting implications for this USDOE technology, as well; one of which relates to WVU's "West Virginia Process" for the direct liquefaction of Coal; and, a second which defines an additional route of Carbon recycling .
All as we attempt to emphasize, in comments following, and inserted within, excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 4,687,570 - Direct Use of Methane in Coal Liquefaction
Date: August, 1987
Inventors: Muthu Sundaram and Meyer Steinberg, NY
Assignee: The United States of America
Abstract: This invention relates to a process for converting solid carbonaceous material, such as coal, to liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons utilizing methane ... 50-100% by volume in a mix of methane and hydrogen. A hydrogen donor solvent or liquid vehicle such as tetralin ... may be used in a slurry mix ... .
Carbonaceous feed material can either be natural, such as coal (and) wood, ... or man-made ... .
Claims: A process for the liquefaction of carbonaceous materials to produce predominantly liquid hydrocarbons comprising heating said materials in a liquefaction reactor to (specified temperatures, and under specified pressures, and for) a residence time in the liquefaction reactor of about 20-120 minutes.
The process ... wherein the gas employed is natural gas.
("Synthetic" Methane, as produced via, for instance, the Penn State process noted above, would, we assure you, be the same chemically as that found in "natural gas", and would work just as well.)
(And) wherein the solid carbonaceous feed material is selected from a member of a group consisting of natural raw materials, such as coal, wood, oil shale, petroleum, tar sands, and man-made residual oils, tars, and heavy hydrocarbon residues.
(And, as the USDOE repeats it again for emphasis) wherein the solid carbonaceous material is coal.
The process ... wherein the carbonaceous material is slurried with a donor solvent (which can be) hydrogenated anthracene oil.
The process ... wherein the hydroaromatic solvent employed is ... tetralin,
(As we have, in many previous reports, documented, primary and long-known Coal tars, or Coal oils, can be hydrogenated, via techniques long-used to upgrade heavy crude oil in conventional petroleum refineries, and converted thereby into "Hydrogen Donor" solvents which can serve in the liquefaction and hydrogenation of Coal. "Anthracene oil", as immediately above, will likely be familiar-sounding to any who have long experience in the Coal industry; it is most often extracted from Coke oven tars. "Tetralin", as above, as confirmed, for one instance, in: WVU Hydrogenates Coal Tar | Research & Development | News; is a derivative of the primary Coal oil, Naphthalene.)
Background: The liquefaction of coal to yield liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons has been known for some time. During the liquefaction process, the macromolecular network of the coal is broken into smaller units resulting in lighter products of reduced molecular weight. This involves an upgrading in the hydrogen content of the resulting products.
One of the earliest reported coal liquefaction processes was the Bergius process (1914) which used a paste of coal, heavy oil, and a small amount of iron oxide catalyst ... . This process was later refined by I. G. Farben in Germany to produce commercial quality gasoline during World War II.
A similar process was used in Great Britain, developed by Imperial Chemical Industries, to hydrogenate coal to make gasoline but this process has not been in commercial use since 1958 ... .
In the United States the solvent refining of coal was developed during the energy crisis in the late 1950s and a pilot demonstration plant was constructed which had an output of 45 tons per day, utilizing a slurry of coal which was taken up in process-derived anthracene oil ... .
Later, the H-Coal process was developed by Hydrocarbon Research, Inc., at Catlettsburg, KY. (But) a commercial plant was never built incorporating this technology.
To date, all existing processes for the direct liquefaction of coal by solvent extraction have utilized molecular hydrogen at high pressures ... . The cost analysis of a typical coal liquefaction process shows that as much as one-third of the overall cost is devoted to hydrogen production. The considerable expense of hydrogen production is one of the significant drawbacks to commercial application of coal liquefaction technology.
By the present invention, applicants have developed a process that eliminates the need to use the costly molecular hydrogen in the liquefaction.
Applicants have found that methane can be used in place of molecular hydrogen in the liquefaction process without significantly decreasing the yields of the desired oil products.
The use of methane ... permits the use of an abundant natural resource to convert another abundant natural resource, coal, into usable fuel products.
In contrast to the prior art processes, which all represent hydrogenation processes, the instant invention accomplishes the liquefaction of carbonaceous materials such as coal in a pressurized methane atmosphere.
Not only does the instant process have the economical advantages discussed above, it also has an advantage over the conventional hydrogenation approaches in curtailing the amount of unwanted C1 - C4 hydrocarbon gas products formed during the liquefaction process.
(Using Methane to liquefy Coal, in other words, not only dramatically reduces costs, relative to Hydrogen, it also serves to prevent the loss of the Coal's carbon content through co-production of more CH4, and other gases, in the Coal conversion process itself.)
By the present invention, applicants have developed a process that eliminates the need to use the costly molecular hydrogen in the liquefaction.
Applicants have found that methane can be used in place of molecular hydrogen in the liquefaction process without significantly decreasing the yields of the desired oil products.
In contrast to the prior art processes, which all represent hydrogenation processes, the instant invention accomplishes the liquefaction of carbonaceous materials such as coal in a pressurized methane atmosphere.
The ability to use the lower temperatures of the present invention in itself decreases the amount of gaseous product formed.
In addition, the hydrogenation processes, which involve the hydrogen splitting of the aromatic ring structures in coal, liberate C1 - C4 hydrocarbon gases as by-products. The present invention, which proceeds via alkylation reactions rather than hydrogenation, diminishes such splitting reactions and, therefore, decreases significantly the amount of C1 - C4 hydrocarbon by-products and the improved yield of liquid products provides an important economic advantage and an improvement in the quality of the higher liquid content end product.
In the practice of the present invention, a preferred carbonaceous material is coal of the bituminous grade.
The methane reactant serves as a reservoir for hydrogen atoms which can be generated in situ to react with the free radicals from the liquefied coal which are developed during the early heating stages of the coal.
The role of methane as the hydrogen reservoir becomes more important as the liquefaction process proceeds. During the initial stages of liquefaction, very little hydrogen is required to stabilize the free radicals generated from the coal. However, during the later stages of the liquefaction process, the hydrogen requirement is found to increase exponentially with coal conversion.
The instant invention thus presents a process for liquefying coal that is both efficient and cost effective."
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We must, in closing, ask:
Just how much more "cost effective" would this "efficient" USDOE technology, for using Methane, to help convert our abundant "coal of the bituminous grade" - - and Carbon-recycling, sustainable materials, such as, as in the Abstract, "wood" - - into "desired oil products", actually be, if the Methane were to be obtained, as in:
Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development | News;
by using freely-available and renewable environmental energy to collect atmospheric CO2; and then to convert that CO2 into such useful Methane?