Hydrocarbon synthesis - Patent 2347682
As seen in: Standard Oil 1944 CO2 + CH4 + H20 = Aviation Fuel | Research & Development | News; which concerns: "United States Patent 2,360,463 - Hydrocarbon Conversion; October, 1944; Assignee: Standard Oil Company, Chicago; Abstract: This invention relates to the conversion of hydrocarbons into useful products and particularly into high quality gasolines and still more particularly aviation gasolines. The invention relates especially to the conversion of methane into ... high yields of motor fuels of unusually good quality (and, wherein) the composition of the synthesis gas ... is adjusted by controlling the amount of carbon dioxide introduced"; we've documented that, even before WWII had played out, technologies were being developed to enable the recycling of Carbon Dioxide into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
Herein, via the initial link in this dispatch, we demonstrate that such CO2 and Methane "bi-reforming" technology had been under development even earlier during WWII.
However, we want to first remind you that CO2-Methane bi-reforming can be taken as a complete Carbon Dioxide-recycling technology, when viewed in the context of the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which was awarded to Paul Sabatier, of France, for, as the Nobel Committee put it, in general terms, as in:
Paul Sabatier Winner of the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry; "his method of hydrogenating organic compounds in the presence of finely disintegrated metals whereby the progress of organic chemistry has been greatly advanced in recent years"; and, as Sabatier himself clarified in his own Nobel address:
Paul Sabatier - Nobel Lecture: "Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are both changed immediately into methane, which can therefore be synthesized with the greatest ease."
With that established, following, with brief comment appended, are excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch, further demonstrating that, when supplies of overseas oil became threatened, we were able to devise a way in which we could synthesize our own liquid fuels, just as Germany and Japan were, as we've many times documented, synthesizing them out of Coal, by reacting Carbon Dioxide, reclaimed from whatever source, with Methane, which can itself, as seen above, be synthesized from Carbon Dioxide:
"United States Patent 2.347.682 - Hydrocarbon Synthesis
Date: May, 1944
Inventor: Robert Gunness, Chicago
Assignee: Standard Oil Company of Indiana
Abstract: This invention relates to an improved method and means for effecting the synthesis of hydrocarbons from carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
In practicing my invention I ... prefer to employ... methane (which is) mixed with such proportion of carbon dioxide and steam as to give a gas mixture having an atomic hydrogen:carbon:oxygen ratio of about 4:1:1.
(The specified) reforming operation converts the methane-carbon dioxide-steam mixture into a gas consisting chiefly of hydrogen and carbon monoxide ... hereinafter referred to as ... 'synthesis' gas.
(Interestingly, we interject, that, it is explained that the gas mixture needs to be heated to effect the reforming reaction, and, that fossil fuel should be burned to generate the needed heat, with Carbon Dioxide to be recovered from the exhaust gas of that combustion and fed into the process. We submit, instead, that heat could be provided by any number of environmental thermal energy sources, such as Geothermal or concentrated Solar; or, be produced by electricity generated by dedicated Wind- or Hydro-power installations. Thus, more Carbon Dioxide - collected, say, from a Tar Sand bitumen cracker, outside the process of the present invention - could be added to the process of the invention.).
The reaction products (of the synthesis gas) may be fractionated in any conventional manner ... for separating C3 and C4 hydrocarbons from ... methane, ethane and ethylene. The C3 and C4 hydrocarbons are rich in olefins and may be converted ... into high quality motor fuels or heavier oils.
The catalyst for the synthesis step may be metallic cobalt or nickel on a suitable carrier such as ... alumina, with one or more promoting oxides such as oxides of magnesium, thorium, manganese, alumina, etc.
Claims: A method of converting low molecular weight hydrocarbon gases into hydrocarbons of higher molecular weight which comprises mixing said hydrocarbon gases with carbon dioxide."
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We presume that the "methane", as above, regenerated, finally, as a rather minor by-product, along with the "high quality motor fuels", is recycled back into the system for reaction with even more Carbon Dioxide, again as recovered from whatever convenient source, perhaps a cement kiln.
And, if more Methane is needed, to react with even more Carbon Dioxide, to make things like "heavier oils", we can synthesize that Methane from CO2, as via, as in another technology we think especially suitable, the process described in: Penn State Solar CO2 + H2O = Methane | Research & Development | News; wherein is explained the: "'High-Rate Solar Photocatalytic Conversion of CO2 and Water Vapor to Hydrocarbon Fuels'; Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University; 2009; Efficient solar conversion of carbon dioxide and water vapor to methane."