WV Coal Member Meeting 2024 1240x200 1 1

Another German 1932 US Coal Liquefaction Patent

Conversion of solid fuels and products derived there from or other carbonaceous materials into valuable products

We've already documented, a number of times, that the Axis powers, Germany especially, telegraphed their WWII Coal-derived synthetic liquid fuels punch to the rest of the world; and, especially to the United States of America, by, with blunt pragmatism, openly obtaining US Patents on their Coal hydrogenation and liquefaction synthetic fuel technologies in the years immediately before the bombs started falling in London.

Herein we submit yet another example of that exercise in intellectual directness.

 

 

And, it is one originating from the same team of European scientists that, as seen in our report last year of:

Germany-New Jersey 1932 CoalTL | Research & Development; concerning: "USP 1,890,434 - Conversion of Solid Fuels into Valuable Liquids; December, 1932; Inventor: Carl Krauch, et. al., Germany; Abstract: One of the most important and widely agitated problems in the industrial world has for a long time been how to produce good gasoline or other valuable liquid fuels from solid fuel including coal ... . By the process herein described we claim to ... produce good pure liquid fuels ... from solid fuels."

Comment follows excerpts from the initial link, above, to:

"United States Patent 1876009 - Conversion of ... Carbonaceous Materials into Valuable Products

Publication Date: September, 1932

Inventors: Carl Krauch and Mathias Pier, Germany

Assignee: Standard IG

Abstract: One of the most important and widely discussed problems in the industrial world has for a long time been how to produce good gasoline or other valuable liquid fuels from solid fuel including coal in all its varieties and wood ...".

(Note, that, in 1932, they were, already, perhaps inadvertently, addressing the issues of sustainability and Carbon recycling by including "wood", along with "coal in all its varieties".)

One attempt at the solution of this problem has been by liquefaction of coals by means of hydrogen or by destructive hydrogenation of tars or oils under high pressure at high temperature, but this has not reached application industrially because of an unsatisfactory speed and rate of the conversion.

(We) claim to have successfully solved this problem for the first time and to be able to produce good pure liquid fuels, including also bezines from solid fuels and to convert also tars obtained from solid fuels ... into more valuable liquid products, including benzines, by a process economical in material, time, labor and wear of apparatus.

(We) discovered that the cause (of drawbacks in prior art processes) was the sulfur present in the treated material, and by experimenting discovered certain catalysts which would work satisfactorily under the existing conditions notwithstanding the presence of the sulfur or sulfur compounds.

As regards the materials to be treated, the invention can be applied to any sort of solid fuels, for example, hard or soft coal, lignite, peat, wood, or similar materials (and) tars obtained from them, whether by ordinary destructive distillation or by low temperature carbonization ... .

Claims: The process of converting high-boiling carbonaceous substances, such as solid and liquid fuels, distillation and extraction products thereof into valuable low boiling liquids, by destructive hydrogenation ... ."

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We close our excerpts there, since they disclose that this technology is very similar, or related, to a Coal conversion process that was being developed concurrently, through the late 1920's and into the 1940's, as we long ago documented for you, by, among others but primarily, US Bureau of Mines scientist Lewis Karrick; who, after inventing and developing the "Low-Temperature Carbonization" technology at laboratories in the western US, and even establishing a Coal conversion pilot plant in Colorado, transferred, in the early 1950's, to the Pittsburgh, PA, USBM labs, where he finished his career.

More info can be found in: Lewis Karrick - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; where we learn, that:

"Lewis Cass Karrick (1890–1962) was an American petroleum refinery engineer ... and coal technologist, and inventor. He patented several coal and oil shale related inventions, and he also refined and perfected a low-temperature carbonization and pyrolysis process for processing coal and other carbonaceous materials, known as the Karrick process. Lewis Karrick worked as a consulting engineer for the United States synthetic fuels studies in Utah and Ohio. In the 1920s, he improved the low-temperature carbonization and pyrolysis process for processing coal and other carbonaceous materials ... .

In 1930–1938, he worked as a supervisor of the coal products research at the University of Utah. In 1943, Karrick was employed by the United States Geological Survey ... .

In 1950, he was transferred to the United States Bureau of Mine's Pittsburgh station."

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Prior to his tenure at the University of Utah, Karrick had already been at work on his LTC Coal conversion technology, and was awarded a number of United States Patents for it and processes related to it, as for one example: "Gasification of carbonaceous material - United States Patent 1901170; March, 1933."

Though awarded in 1933, USP 1901170 was applied for in the early 1920's; and was, thus, almost precisely coincident with the 1932 USP 1876009 awarded, as herein, to Germany's Krauch and Pier.

Sadly, way back then, when it was already recognized to be very "important", in certain circles, that we learn "how to produce good gasoline or other valuable liquid fuels from ... coal", no one among the general public was informed of the fact.

Or, if informed, they didn't believe or accept it.

They might, given all that's happened in the past few decades, now be a lot more receptive to learning the  plain truth, that:

Coal can, efficiently, by any number of long-known technologies, be converted into hydrocarbons that can serve as direct replacements for anything we now derive from petroleum.

It's far past time they were so informed, and at least given the opportunity to accept or reject the truth of it.