The United States Patent we report herein requires a careful read to ascertain what it is really all about.
Simply put, it discloses methods both to prepare a Coal hydrogenation catalyst, and, to utilize that catalyst in the conversion of Coal into both liquid hydrocarbons and more Coal hydrogenation catalyst.
Comment follows rather tediously-technical excerpts from:
"United States Patent 4,495,306 - Preparation of Catalysts ... in the Presence of a Carbonaceous Solid
Date: January, 1985
Inventors: Peter Budahn and Jorn Ehlers, Germany
Assignee: The British Petroleum Company Limited, London
Abstract: A process for the preparation of hydrogenation catalysts by contacting a carbonaceous material with a water in oil emulsion containing a salt of a hydrogenating metal, converting said salt to a hydroxide or sulfide and subsequently removing the water.
Claims: A process for the preparation of a catalyst suitable for hydrogenation of coal ... .
(And) wherein the hydrogenating metal is selected from one or more of the following metals: iron, tin, molybdenum, cobalt, nickel, zinc, vanadium, tungsten, chromium and antimony (and) wherein the hydrogenating metals are iron and tin.
Description: This invention relates to a process for the production of particles of a solid carbonaceous material, particularly coal, in admixture with a hydrogenation catalyst ... particularly when coal is employed, as a self-catalysed feedstock for hydrogenation.
A process for the liquid phase hydrogenation of coal was developed by I. G. Farbenindustrie A.G. (IG) and used on a large industrial scale until 1945. In 1973 interest revived and the process was developed further. (This new process) operates like the old IG process with a cheap iron catalyst.
To make the catalyst, ferric oxide .... is ground together with coal in a ball mill.
An aqueous solution of ferrous sulphate ... is then sprayed onto the finely ground coal. The distribution of the catalyst onto the coal is poor so that relatively large quantities of catalyst have to be used to achieve a high conversion rate of coal into liquid products.
Earlier work in the field of coal liquefaction has shown that the degree of conversion (transforming the coal into liquid and gaseous products) depends on various parameters such as temperature, hydrogen partial pressure, presence and nature of a `hydrogen donor solvent` and presence and nature of a catalyst.
According to the present invention, there is provided a process for the production of a mixture of a solid carbonaceous material in particulate form and a hydrogenation catalyst ... .
The preferred carbonaceous material are hard coals, particularly bituminous coal.
Such materials may be used to catalyse their own hydrogenation and/or the hydrogenation of other products.
The oil component of the above emulsion is preferably a heavy fraction derived from the hydrogenation of coal.
However, heavy fractions and residues derived from ... coal tar ... are also suitable.
(As we have at least once documented for you, we remind you without linking to the report, that, Coal, and Coal hydrogenation technology, which can be used, as above, in "the hydrogenation of other products", is key to technical plans we reported for utilizing the bitumen in Canada's rather vast tar sand deposits in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Furthermore, we have also previously documented that any "oil component" needed, to create an emulsion of raw Coal for initial hydrogenation processing, can be made as a by-product of the Coal liquefaction process itself. And, Hydrogen donor solvents, such as the "Tetralin" utilized in WVU's "West Virginia Process" for direct Coal liquefaction, which is an hydrogenated version of the primary "coal tar", Naphthalene ', are, as well, made from Coal. And, thus, the various Coals specified herein by BP can be made "to catalyze their own hydrogenation".)
According to a still further feature of the invention, the carbonaceous material is suspended in the oil, the aqueous solution of the salt of the hydrogenating metal is emulsified with the oil, the emulsion is mixed with the suspension, and the salt is then converted to the sparingly soluble derivative.
The water contained in the system is then preferably removed by evaporation.
Suitable water-soluble metallic salts include those of iron, tin, molybdenum, cobalt, nickel, zinc, vanadium, tungsten, chromium and antimony. Preferably the sulphates are employed.
The combination of an iron salt and a salt of another hydrogenating metal, preferably tin, is particularly beneficial.
Catalysts which contain iron in combination with tin, molybdenum, nickel, cobalt or zinc provide a further advantage in the highly active sulphidic form. If they are used to hydrogenate a coal/oil slurry in which the slurry oil is a heavy distillate from a previous coal hydrogenation process, then the product contains a relatively high concentration of hydrogen donor substances. To achieve this level previously required a separate hydrogenation stage. It is known that a high proportion of hydrogen donor compounds has a beneficial effect on conversion, distillate yield and also product quality.
Tin containing catalysts are distinguished by high hydrogenating and cracking activity which results in the preferential formation of light products."
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So, British Petroleum confess that the invention they disclose herein is merely an advancement on a "process for the ... hydrogenation of coal" that was "used on a large industrial scale until 1945" - until, in other words, as we several times documented for you, the Allied military command, as a consequence of the exigencies of war, did Big Oil's dirty work for him, and bombed into smithereens the, at least, seven, perhaps twelve, factories in Europe and Asia that were keeping the Axis powers supplied with liquid fuels - all made from Coal.
And, let's think for a moment:
What would our friends, the environmentalists - the, perhaps, unwitting tools of Big Oil - have to say about the fact that British Petroleum, the despoilers of the Gulf of Mexico, knew, well before their current practice of off-shore drilling had killed a single pelican, that they could, instead, have been, as seemingly confirmed herein, safely manufacturing all of the "petroleum" we might need out of our abundant, "dirty" Coal?