California Patents CO2 Recycling | Research & Development | News
A little more than a year ago, we sent you report, as accessible via the above link to the West Virginia Coal Association's web site, of United States Patent 7,608,743, for the "Efficient and Selective Chemical Recycling of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol, Dimethyl Ether and Derived Products", which was awarded to the University of Southern California's Nobel Laureate, George Olah, and, his colleague there, Surya Prakash.
Due whether to a "glitch" at the United States Patent and Trademark Office's web site, at that time, or to our own varied insufficiencies and limitations, we were unable to provide you with a link directly to, or excerpts taken directly from, the USPTO's own record of USP 7,608,743.
Either our, or the USPTO's, technical issues have since been, to some extent, resolved. And, that has led to a rather startling discovery.
Olah and Prakash, along with one or two other members of the USC faculty, have filed for and/or been awarded at least five, and we think more, United States Patents for technology directly related to the productive, chemical recycling of Carbon Dioxide.
Herein, we want to, first, provide you with a better link to, and some few additional excerpts from, USP 7,608,743; and, then, following, an additional link to, and excerpts from, one of Olah's and Prakash's other US Patents for Carbon Dioxide recycling technology, which has some implication as regards our public, US, treatment of the subject of Carbon Dioxide, and what to do with it.
Comment is interspersed and appended:
United States Patent: 7608743 - "Efficient and Selective Chemical Recycling of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol, Dimethyl Ether and Derived Products"
Date: October, 2009
Inventors: George Olah and Surya Prakash, California
Assignee: The University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Abstract: An efficient and environmentally beneficial method of recycling and producing methanol from varied sources of carbon dioxide including flue gases of fossil fuel burning powerplants, industrial exhaust gases or the atmosphere itself. Converting carbon dioxide by chemical or electrochemical reduction secondary treatment to produce essentially methanol, dimethyl ether and derived products.
Claims: An environmentally beneficial method of reducing the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere and preparing a renewable fuel by separating and chemically recycling carbon dioxide from a natural or chemical source that would otherwise be present in or discharged into the atmosphere, which method comprises: separating the carbon dioxide from such source and producing methanol by hydrogenatively converting the carbon dioxide thus separated under conditions sufficient to produce methanol; utilizing the methanol thus produced as an energy storage and transportation material or as a fuel sufficient to generate energy ... .
(And) wherein the carbon dioxide obtained from such source is hydrogenatively converted to methanol or derived products by catalytic, photochemical or electrochemical processes.
(And) wherein the methanol is produced by hydrogentatively converting the carbon dioxide to form a reaction mixture that contains methanol, formic acid and formaldehyde, followed, without separation of the reaction mixture, by a treatment step conducted under conditions sufficient to convert the formaldehyde and formic acid to methanol.
(And) The method ... wherein the utilizing step further comprises dehydrating methanol under conditions sufficient to produce dimethyl ether ... .
(And) The method ... which further comprises utilizing the methanol or dimethyl ether as convenient energy storage and transportation materials in order to minimize or eliminate the disadvantages or dangers inherent in the use and transportation of hydrogen, LNG or LPG."
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We are compelled to interject, that, in light of, for one instance, ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) technology, which we have many times explained and referenced, Gasoline could also be considered as one of the "derived products" resulting from this "environmentally beneficial method of reducing ... carbon dioxide".
As it happens, that recent United States Patent award was made fully one decade after Olah and Prakash had received another US Patent, very similar in concept to USP 7,608,743; and, it appears to disclose Carbon Dioxide recycling technology very similar in concept.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"United States Patent: 5928806 - Recycling of Carbon Dioxide into Methyl Alcohol
Date: July, 1999
Inventors: George Olah and Surya Prakash, California
(No separate Assignee of Rights is specified.)
Abstract: A regenerative electrochemical cell system based on a fuel cell to oxidize methyl alcohol or other oxygenated hydrocarbons coupled with a regenerative cell to reduce carbon dioxide to form oxygenated hydrocarbons is disclosed. Methods to reversibly interconvert oxygenated hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide, to recycle carbon dioxide produced as a by-product of industrial processes, and to store and release electrical and chemical energy are also disclosed.
Claims: A regenerative fuel cell system comprising: a first electrochemical cell to oxidize an oxygenated hydrocarbon to carbon dioxide and water and having electrical output means for recovering electrical energy produced thereby; and a second electrochemical cell to reduce carbon dioxide and water to the oxygenated hydrocarbon and oxygen and having electrical input means for providing electrical energy thereto.
Background: It is known that aqueous CO2 can be electrocatalytically reduced to produce formic acid, formaldehyde and methyl alcohol. Early reports of the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide date back to the 1870s, although the process only gained recent interest when (it was) demonstrated that aqueous carbon dioxide could be reduced ... to produce formic acid, formaldehyde and methyl alcohol in a photo-assisted electrolytic reduction reaction.
The carbon dioxide reduced in the present invention can be obtained from any available source ... such as emissions of power plants burning carbonaceous fuels (coal, oil, natural gas), fermentation processes, calcination of limestone, or other industrial sources."
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Note that, as in mention of "fermentation processes" and "calcination of limestone", this USC process would help out two truly copious emitters of CO2: cement kilns and producers of "green" corn Ethanol.
The invention of USP 5,928,806 seems to center on a fuel cell that, although it allows for the introduction of some CO2 from outside sources, appears to concern itself primarily with the recycling of Carbon Dioxide generated by the use of fuels it, itself, produces, in a "coupled" arrangement of fuel cells that can efficiently reverse, with very minor energy expenditure - if we read the Disclosure correctly, their own oxidation of the fuels supplied to them to generate electricity.
In any case, note that this one-decade old invention is based, as it specifies, on "reports of the electrochemical" recycling and "reduction of carbon dioxide" that "date back to the 1870s".
Why, in the world, is it taking so long for news of such achievements to reach those of us who most deserve to hear of them - those of us United States citizens resident in US Coal Country, and, all of us United States citizens who remain dependent on avaricious multi-national petroleum corporations and sometimes unfriendly foreign OPEC nations for the supply of our liquid hydrocarbon fuels?
As noted, the inventions documented herein are only two out of multiple, similar and related, CO2-recycling technologies that have been developed by scientists at the University of Southern California.
Reports of several others will follow in coming days.