Since we are, today, via separate dispatch, sending along a report concerning: "United States Patent 4,609,440 - Electrochemical Synthesis of Methane", wherein a "method is described for electrochemically reducing carbon dioxide to form methane", we wanted to again confirm that Methane, once we have it, preferably synthesized from Carbon Dioxide, as, perhaps, in the process of USP 4,609,440, we can then react, or "reform", that Methane with even more Carbon Dioxide, and thereby synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels, including Gasoline.
Note that, as reported by multiple web-based sources, the corporate assignee of the rights to the invention disclosed herein, Lyondell Petrochemical, was once the third-largest US-based chemicals company. It was acquired by, or merged with, the Netherlands-based Bassell company in late 2007. The new company, creatively named LyondellBassell, is now officially headquartered in the Netherlands, but maintains it's corporate business headquarters at Lyondell's original home offices in Houston, Texas.
Also, we must point out that, much as in our report:
Exxon Recycles By-Product CO2 to Methanol | Research & Development | News; wherein is disclosed: "United States Patent 6,495,609 - Carbon Dioxide Recovery in ... Ethylene Oxide Production; 2002; Assignee: ExxonMobil Chemical Patents, Inc., Texas";
Lyondell's technology herein seems to concern itself with the recycling of Carbon Dioxide, and Methane, generated as the by-products of another organic chemicals manufacturing process. As with the Exxon technology, however, the sources of the CO2 and the Methane seem to us to be relatively immaterial.
The point is that they can, once we have them from whatever source, be utilized together as raw materials for the synthesis of higher, liquid hydrocarbons.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link to:
"US Patent 5,026,934 - Converting Light Hydrocarbons to Olefins, Gasoline and Methanol
Date: June, 1991
Inventors: Charanjit Bains and Martin Grosboll, Texas
Assignee: Lyondell Petrochemical Company, Houston
Abstract: The invention provides a method of converting light hydrocarbons to olefins, gasoline and methanol.
In this method the unsynthesized light hydrocarbons and the oxides of carbon are used to produce methanol, which can be used for several purposes including gasoline or ethylene synthesis.
Claims: A method for converting light hydrocarbons to higher hydrocarbons and methanol, which comprises:
contacting a gas containing one or more light hydrocarbons at synthesizing conditions with an oxidative synthesizing agent to synthesize higher hydrocarbons from at least part of the light hydrocarbons; recovering the higher hydrocarbons; recovering carbon dioxide (and) mixing the recovered carbon dioxide with hydrogen or synthesis gas; (and) contacting the mixture comprising carbon dioxide at methanol synthesizing conditions with an agent capable of synthesizing methanol; and, the ... method ... wherein the light hydrocarbons are selected from the group consisting of methane, (etc.)."
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We'll leave our excerpts very brief since the bulk of the full Disclosure is devoted to the specifics of the catalysis; and, to how, as in ExxonMobil's US Patent 6,495,609, noted above, the Carbon Dioxide and the Methane are both recovered, in part, as by-products of the complete process of US Patent 5,026,934.
But, regardless of their sources, we can, as herein, combine CO2, and/or other "oxides of carbon", with Methane - perhaps manufactured, via the process revealed in just one of our earlier reports concerning such technology: Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development | News, from CO2; or, as in: Exxon Converts 99% of Coal to Methane | Research & Development | News; from Coal; and, thereby generate a gas mixture suitable for synthesizing, again as specified, "gasoline and methanol".