Method for forming synthesis gas
First, please recall: 1940 CO2 + H2O + CH4 = Hydrocarbon Syngas | Research & Development | News;
wherein is disclosed details of: "US Patent 2,198,553 - Making a Synthesis Gas Mixture of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen; April, 1940; Assignee: The M.W. Kellogg Company, NY; Abstract: Our invention relates to a method of making synthesis gas ... having a controllable ratio of hydrogen with respect to carbon monoxide ... from methane, steam and carbon dioxide."
Also, as in: USDOE Pays for California Methane from Coal and Steam | Research & Development | News; and: Chicago Recycles CO2 to Methane | Research & Development | News; keep in mind that we can synthesize such useful Methane either from Coal, or, from Carbon Dioxide.
Herein, we see that the corporate assignee of US Patent 2,198,553, now a component of the oil industry services company, Kellogg, Brown & Root, "KBR", kept their scientists at work on the development of Carbon Dioxide recycling technology, and, later in the very same year, and still before the US had been engaged as a full participant in WWII, were awarded yet another US Patent for a closely-related CO2 conversion process.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
United States Patent 2,220,849 - Method for Forming Synthesis Gas
Date: November, 1940
Inventor: Earl Riblett, NJ
Assignee: The M.W. Kellogg Company, NY
Abstract: My invention relates to a method and apparatus for forming a synthesis gas and more particularly to a method of converting a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide ... to mixtures of carbon monoxide and hydrogen suitable for use in various processes of synthesizing organic compounds.
A mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen may be made from ... methane ... and carbon dioxide according to the following reaction: CH4 + CO2 = 2CO = 2H2.
This reaction may be used with a similar reaction where steam is used: CH4 + H2O = CO + 3H2.
The advantage of the two reactions over either when used alone is obvious since only by a combination of the two reactions can the optimum ratio of carbon monoxide to hydrogen be obtained directly from (methane): 3CH4 +2H2O +CO2 = 4CO +8H2.
One object of my invention is to provide a method of converting mixtures of carbon dioxide and methane into synthesis gas mixtures containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen in a continuous manner irrespective of the presence of sulphur or its compounds in the incoming gases.
Claims: A method of converting methane and carbon dioxide into hydrogen and carbon monoxide ... ."
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Kellogg does specify Iron, Nickel and/or Cobalt as among the suitable catalysts - - nothing too exotic.
Further, although they don't specify what "organic compounds" can be formed from the synthesis gas, they do more fully explain, as indicated in our excerpts, how the Hydrogen-Carbon Monoxide ratio in the syngas can be varied and controlled by varying the proportions of the CO2, CH4 and H2O reactants.
And, in Kellogg's formulas, quite a lot of CH4, Methane, is required, proportionally, for the Carbon Dioxide recycling reactions.
That's okay, since, as in: Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development | News; we can utilize freely-available environmental energy to convert CO2 into all of the Methane we might want.