Process of synthesizing hydrocarbons
We've earlier reported, as in:
Standard Oil Carbon Monoxide + Water = Gasoline | Research & Development; which concerned: "United States Patent 4,559,363 - Process for Reacting Carbon Monoxide and Water; Date: December, 1985; A process for reacting carbon monoxide and water ... for the production of hydrocarbons by reacting carbon monoxide and water"; that:
Catalysts, and processes based on those catalysts, exist, which enable the synthesis of hydrocarbons from nothing but Water, perhaps in the form of Steam, and Carbon Monoxide as the starting materials.
Herein, from what might have been some of us geezers' very first Christmas, we bring you further confirmation of that fact.
We note that one of the Pittsburgh-area Gulf Oil scientists named as the inventor herein is one we have cited, actually over-cited, since disabilities and computer breakdowns led to a duplication of reports, previously; as seen, for one of those duplicate instances, in:
Pittsburgh Gulf Oil 1953 CoalTL | Research & Development; which divulged: "USP 2,654,675 - Process for Preparing Liquid Hydrocarbons from Coal; 1953; Inventor: William Gilbert, et. al.; Assignee: Gulf Research and Development Company, Pittsburgh; Abstract: This invention involves an improved combination of steps for preparing liquid hydrocarbon fuels from coal."
That said, comment, with an additional link documenting how we can use Coal to transform an environmental pollutant into, as in this Gulf Oil process, a key raw material for making Gasoline, follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 2,579,663 - Process of Synthesizing Hydrocarbons
Date: December 25, 1951
Inventor: William Gilbert and Charles Montgomery, PA
Assignee: Gulf Research and Development Company, Pittsburgh
Abstract: This invention relates to a process for synthesizing hydrocarbons; more particularly the invention relates to a process for synthesizing normally liquid hydrocarbons from carbon monoxide and steam.
The reaction between carbon monoxide and steam has been employed in the past for the manufacture of hydrogen.
We have now discovered that carbon monoxide and steam can be reacted so as to produce among the products of the reaction an important yield of normally liquid hydrocarbons; i.e., hydrocarbons that are liquid at atmospheric temperature and pressure conditions.
This process is advantageous in that the raw materials for the process are relatively inexpensive and the products include not only the valuable hydrocarbons, but also a proportion of hydrogen which is available for use in hydrogenation processes such as the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process ... .
(Note: The excess Hydrogen generated by this Gulf Oil process can, thus, be used to help to hydrogenate Coal liquids generated by the venerable Fischer-Tropsch Coal conversion process. It could also, we submit, be directed to a Sabatier reactor, where it could be reacted with Carbon Dioxide, recovered from whatever source, perhaps a nearby brewery, and be made to form Methane; which can then, of course, be reacted with even more Carbon Dioxide, as in the "tri-reforming" processes espoused by Penn State University, and be made thereby to synthesize such interesting things as Methanol.)
In carrying out the process of the invention, the charge mixture of carbon monoxide and steam is preferably prepared before being brought in contact with the catalyst. The ration of carbon monoxide to steam in the charge mixture has an important effect upon the results achieved. (And) the most effective results are obtained when using ratios from about 1:1 to about 2:1.
Claims: A process for the production of normally liquid hydrocarbons which comprises contacting a mixture in which the reactants consist of carbon monoxide and steam ... with an iron catalyst."
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First of all, we suggest, that, in the interests of environmental correctness, the needed Steam be generated by some form of environmentally-derived energy.
Hydroelectric power should do the job just fine, although the cement needed to build dams generates a huge amount of Carbon Dioxide, CO2, when it's being made from limestone.
That might be okay, though, since Carbon Monoxide is needed in Gulf Oil's process herein, to make "normally liquid hydrocarbons".
And, as seen for just one instance in:
1915 CO2 Recycling | Research & Development; "United States Patent 1,163,922 - Producing Carbon Monoxid from Carbon Dioxid; 1915; Inventor: Charles Hillhouse, NYC, NY; This invention relates to the production of carbon monoxid (CO) gas (by) mixing powdered carbon and carbon dioxid (CO2) gas under sufficiently high temperature to cause a carbon molecule to combine with one of the oxygen elements of the CO2, resulting in 2CO. This method is adapted to the treatment of pure, or substantially pure, CO2 gas such as is obtained from limestone ... and mixtures of CO2 with other gases, of which one may be nitrogen where carbon or carbonaceous material is burnt, such as the gases of combustion from boilers. The reclamation of CO from CO2 gas heretofore has been accomplished by passing the CO2 gas over or through a mass of carbon (coke, coal or charcoal) ... .;
we can make all of the Carbon Monoxide we might want, to react with Steam, in Gulf Oil's process of United States Patent 2,579,663, to thereby synthesize those "normally liquid hydrocarbons", through the rather direct approach of "passing the CO2 gas over or through a mass of ... coal".
And, that would seem an especially appropriate final word.