United States Patent Application: 0090269264
Among the interesting facts to be learned in this United States Patent Application - - made by Japanese inventors, for an improvement in technology that, in a process which is identified by other sources we've cited for you as "bi-reforming", converts Carbon Dioxide, via reactions with Methane, into a synthesis gas composed of Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide, and well-suited for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbon fuels - - is that:
The Carbon Dioxide is to be obtained herein by what we are compelled to suggest is a "regenerating" process for alkaline-based compounds of the type used to extract CO2 from exhaust gas streams.
Such a technology would, we submit, make it unnecessary either to collect and pump our Coal power plant exhaust to and down a depleted oil well rat hole, to subsidize the oil industry's secondary petroleum recovery under the euphemistic guise of "Geologic Sequestration"; or, to, as in current schemes, continuously mine Carbon Dioxide-absorbing minerals, and, after they've absorbed as much exhaust gas CO2 as they can, hauling them out onto, and dumping them down into, the ocean.
Herein, Japanese scientists propose that such CO2-absorbing minerals can be treated and made to release their absorbed Carbon Dioxide; and, the reclaimed CO2 can then be reacted, "reformed", with Methane to form a hydrocarbon synthesis gas composed primarily of Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide and suitable for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbons.
Since Methane is required herein, to react with the Carbon Dioxide, we remind you, as seen in, for just two, out of now many, examples:
Chicago Recycles CO2 to Methane | Research & Development | News; and:
USDOE Pays for California Methane from Coal and Steam | Research & Development | News; that:
Methane can be synthesized, via any one of several available technologies, either from Carbon Dioxide itself, or, from Coal.
And, as seen in our excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch, with brief comment appended, once we have the Methane, synthesized from either Carbon Dioxide or Coal, we can react it with even more CO2, and thereby generate a hydrocarbon synthesis gas suitable for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbons:
"US Patent Application 20090269264A1 - Carbon Dioxide Reforming Catalyst
Date: October, 2009
Inventor: Yoshinori Saito and Hideto Sato, Japan
Assignee: Murata Manufacturing, Ltd.
Abstract: A carbon dioxide reforming catalyst and a manufacturing method thereof are provided, the catalyst enabling a hydrocarbon feedstock gas to react with carbon dioxide while carbon deposition is suppressed, efficiently generating hydrogen and carbon monoxide. A mixture containing a carbonate of at least one alkaline earth metal selected from the group consisting of Ca, Sr, and Ba and a catalytic metal promoting a decomposition reaction of a hydrocarbon feedstock gas is contained as a primary component. The catalytic metal can be a least one element selected from the group consisting of Ni, Rh, Ru, Ir, Pd, Pt, Re, Co, Fe, and Mo. In addition, ATiO3 (where A is at least one alkaline earth metal selected from the group consisting of Ca, Sr, and Ba) can further be present. The manufacturing is performed through a step in which carbon dioxide is absorbed in an alkaline earth/Ti composite oxide having a carbon dioxide absorption ability.
Claims: A carbon dioxide reforming catalyst which reforms a hydrocarbon feedstock gas by carbon dioxide and can be used to generate a synthetic gas containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen, comprising:a mixture comprising a carbonate of at least one alkaline earth metal selected from the group consisting of Ca, Sr, and Ba, and a catalytic metal which promotes a decomposition reaction of a hydrocarbon feedstock gas.
(A) method for manufacturing a synthetic gas containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen by carbon dioxide reforming of a hydrocarbon feedstock gas employing a reforming catalyst, the improvement which comprises utilizing as the reforming catalyst, a carbon dioxide reforming catalyst (as specified in the full claims).
The present invention relates to a carbon dioxide reforming catalyst that is used when a synthetic gas containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide is manufactured by carbon dioxide reforming of a hydrocarbon feedstock gas, to a method for manufacturing a synthetic gas using the carbon dioxide reforming catalyst, to a method for manufacturing the carbon dioxide reforming catalyst, and to a support for a carbon dioxide reforming catalyst.
Background: Since carbon dioxide is a major material causing the global warming, a reduction in discharge amount of carbon dioxide and effective use thereof have been regarded as urgent requirements in recent years.
In addition, despite being generated in technical fields of petroleum refining, petroleum chemistry, and the like, various hydrocarbon gases are not always efficiently utilized, for example, as feedstock gases for various substances, and a more effective method for converting hydrocarbon gases into other substances has been actually desired.
When carbon dioxide reforming of a feedstock gas primarily containing methane is performed by using the carbon dioxide reforming catalyst of the present invention, a synthetic gas containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen can be efficiently manufactured from a feedstock gas primarily containing methane.
For manufacturing a synthetic gas containing hydrogen and carbon monoxide, a method is known (carbon dioxide reforming of a hydrocarbon) in which a saturated hydrocarbon, such as methane, functioning as a reducing agent is reacted with carbon dioxide in the presence of a catalyst so as to form hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which are industrially effective synthetic gases."
-------------------
We, obviously, have not reproduced very many of the details concerning the needed catalysts. But, we assure you, they are neither too exotic nor too expensive
And, the immediately foregoing is the essence of the thing: These Japanese scientists have developed a better catalyst for the "method" that is already "known", wherein "methane" ... whether synthesized, we submit, as in our introductory references above, from either Carbon Dioxide or Coal ... "is reacted with carbon dioxide" and the two thereby converted into "industrially effective synthetic gases".
Furthermore, though it isn't overly emphasized, note, that, as in our excerpts, the Carbon Dioxide is posited to be obtained from a "mixture containing a carbonate of at least one alkaline earth metal selected from the group consisting of Ca, Sr, and Ba" and, that, the "manufacturing is performed through a step in which carbon dioxide is absorbed in an alkaline earth/Ti composite oxide having a carbon dioxide absorption ability" wherein "a catalytic metal promoting a decomposition reaction of a hydrocarbon feedstock gas is contained as a primary component".
By the statement that "the manufacturing is performed through a step in which carbon dioxide is" first "absorbed in an alkaline earth/Ti composite oxide having a carbon dioxide absorption ability", we take the inventors to mean that a specially-designed Carbon Dioxide absorbent - - perhaps consisting of Calcium Oxide, CaO, on a support of Titanium Oxide; which is converted into Calcium Carbonate upon exposure to Carbon Dioxide; as, perhaps, in an exhaust gas CO2 scrubber based on such absorbent technology - - is made to release it's absorbed Carbon Dioxide into the process of USP Application 20090269264, where that CO2 is then reacted with Methane and converted into hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
The absorbent would thus, as well, be regenerated, and could be recycled to the exhaust gas scrubber to capture more Carbon Dioxide.
It would then be unnecessary, were such Carbon Dioxide capture to become law, for CO2-absorbent material to be disposed of once it has done it's job. We wouldn't have to pay either for freshly-mined limestone, or for disposal of limestone-based absorbents once they were saturated with Carbon Dioxide.
The projected and otherwise ongoing mandated costs of such mining and disposal, we submit, could and should be deducted from the true manufacturing costs assigned to hydrocarbons produced from the synthesis gas generated, as in the above process of USP Application 20090269264, from CO2.
And, again, as in yet another example:
Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development | News; we can synthesize the Methane, required by USP Application 20090269264 to recycle Carbon Dioxide, from Carbon Dioxide.