As earlier reported, in: Texaco Recycles CO2 to Methanol & Methane | Research & Development | News; which provides details of: "US Patent 4,523,981 - Reducing Carbon Dioxide to Provide a Product; 1985;
Assignee: Texaco, Incorporated, NY; Abstract: A process for reducing carbon dioxide to at least one useful product ... (including) formic acid (and/or) formaldehyde (and.or) methanol (and/or) methane"; the old, familiar Texaco, prior to their assimilation by Chevron, had been at work developing technologies which, if reduced to practice, would have enabled us to put ends both to our crippling reliance on sometimes unfriendly foreign sources of oil and to our pending victimization by climate scare environmentalists, some of whose true motives, in light of evidence such as USP 4,523,981, we must now hold suspect.
Herein, we submit even more such evidence, again from Texaco, further demonstrating that the technology for collecting Carbon Dioxide, and then converting it into valuable, and needed, hydrocarbon fuels does exist.
And, in fact, Texaco presents the technology disclosed herein to be, specifically, an advancement on, and an improvement of, the Carbon Dioxide recycling process earlier disclosed by USP 4,523,981.
First, we must note that "formic acid", a substance, as we have earlier documented, of some commercial utility, is the one exemplar of a product which can be made from Carbon Dioxide which Texaco refers to most often herein.
However, deep within the full Disclosure, we find the isolated statement that:
"Other typical products may be formaldehyde, methanol and methane."
Further, we must note what we perceive to be strong similarities between this Texaco technology and others, originating, as we have documented, in our western USDOE National Laboratories, and at Penn State University, wherein environmental energy, in the form of sunlight, can be harnessed to the task of so collecting and recycling Carbon Dioxide.
Comment follows more extended excerpts from:
"United States Patent 4,609,451 - Means for Reducing Carbon Dioxide to Provide a Product
Date: September, 1986
Inventors: Anthony Sammells and Peter Ang, Illinois
Assignee: Texaco Incorporated, NY
Abstract: A process and apparatus for reducing carbon dioxide to at least one useful product includes two redox couple electrolyte solutions separated by a first membrane having photosensitizers. The carbon dioxide to be reduced is provided to a second membrane whch is contiguous to one of the redox couple electrolyte solutions. The second membrane has photosensitizers and a catalyst. Water provides hydrogen ions, which participate in the reduction of the carbon dioxide, via a separator. In operation both membranes are illuminated and produce excited photosensitizers which cause electron transfer from a first redox solution to a second redox solution and thence to the carbon dioxide in the second membrane thereby, in cooperation with the hydrogen ions, reducing at least some of the carbon dioxide at a surface of the second membrane to provide at least one product.
This is a division of application Ser. No. 593,221, filed Mar. 27, 1984, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,523,981.
Claims: Apparatus for reducing carbon dioxide to provide at least one product comprises: means for containing a first redox coupled electrolyte solution; means for containing a second redox coupled electrolyte solution; first means responsive to illumination for transferring electrons from the first electrolyte solution to the second electrolyte solution; means for containing water; means for providing carbon dioxide ... .
(And) means for providing hydrogen ions from the water ... .
Apparatus ... which ... includes: semiconductor means responsive to illumination for transferring electrons from an electrolyte solution, and ... means adjacent to the semiconductor means and having a catalyst impregnated surface and passageways for the carbon dioxide for permitting a substantial portion of the carbon dioxide to migrate to and through the catalyst impregnated surface to a reduction site and not permeable to electrolyte.
Background and Field: The present invention relates to photoelectrical chemical methods and apparatus for reducing carbon dioxide.
Summary: A process and apparatus for reducing carbon dioxide to at least one useful product includes two redox couple electrolyte solutions separated by a first membrane having photosensitizers. The carbon dioxide to be reduced is provided to a second membrane which is contiguous to one of the redox couple electrolyte solutions. The second membrane has photosensitizers and a catalyst.
Water provides hydrogen ions, which participate in the reduction of the carbon dioxide, via a separator.
In operation both membranes are illuminated and produce excited photosensitizers which cause electron transfer from a first redox solution to a second redox solution and thence to the carbon dioxide in the second membrane thereby, in cooperation with the hydrogen ions, reducing at least some of the carbon dioxide at a surface of the second membrane to provide at least one product.
The nature of the CO2 predominant reduction product is highly dependent upon the catalyst on the surface of (the specified) membrane. For example, if the catalyst is a nickel amalgam, zinc amalgam or lead, the predominant product is formic acid. Other typical products may be formaldehyde, methanol and methane."
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Note that this quarter century-old oil industry CO2-recycling technology posits the use of what we might surmise to be Solar energy, as in it's specification of "means responsive to illumination for transferring electrons from an electrolyte solution" in a process which "relates to photoelectrical chemical methods and apparatus for reducing carbon dioxide".
In that, it seems to be an early form of similar-sounding Carbon Dioxide recycling technologies expounded more lately, as in:
Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development | News; "High-Rate Solar Photocatalytic Conversion of CO2 and Water Vapor to Hydrocarbon Fuels; The Pennsylvania State University; 2009; Efficient solar conversion of carbon dioxide and water vapor to methane and other hydrocarbons"; and:
USDOE Recycles CO2 to Methanol with Solar Power | Research & Development | News; "United States Patent 6,066,187 - Solar Reduction of CO2; 2000; This invention was made with government support ... (from) the U.S. Department of Energy to The Regents of the University of California. The government has certain rights in the invention. (The) use of sunlight to photolyze CO2 to CO (and wherein the) product CO may be used to ... synthesize methanol".
Finally, note, as in other, similar, Carbon Dioxide recycling technologies we have reported for you, that Methane is one of the products generated, along with the liquid fuel, Methanol.
And, keep in mind, that, Methane, once we have it, as herein synthesized from Carbon Dioxide, can, as in, for just one example, our report of:
1941 CO2 + Methane = Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels | Research & Development | News; United States Patent 2,243,869 - Method of Synthesizing Liquid Hydrocarbons; 1941; (The) invention relates to a method of synthesizing liquid hydrocarbons (from) methane and ... only steam and carbon dioxide (need be) employed for converting methane into (the hydrocarbon) synthesis gas";
be further reacted with even more Carbon Dioxide, with both gases being consumed in such reactions, which can be made to form, as USP 2,243,869 specifically states, even more: "hydrocarbons suitable for use as a motor fuel".