United States Patent: 8198338
First of all, to our readers at the West Virginia Coal Association web site:
If you have followed our, literally, thousands of reports over the past several years, reports documenting the plain facts that Coal can be efficiently converted into anything we now allow ourselves to be extorted by OPEC for the supply of; that Coal Ash can be productively consumed and utilized in the manufacture of Cement and Concrete; and, that Carbon Dioxide can be productively and profitably recycled in the synthesis of even more hydrocarbon fuels, you should know, you have a right to know, that, these reports are not addressed solely to, or written only for, the West Virginia Coal Association.
They are, in fact, sent and posted directly to fully half a dozen public Coal Country journalists in the states of West Virginia and Pennsylvania; at least one of whom was once considered to be a close personal friend of one of our key team members.
The West Virginia Coal Association knows who those journalists are, but, the accomplished and seasoned individuals who staff the Association are discreet and circumspect professionals who are likely unwilling to stir controversy or ill will by naming them; by calling them out as to why the general Coal Country public has not been fully and openly informed of the now-incontrovertible facts, that: Coal and Carbon Dioxide can not only be efficiently converted into liquid hydrocarbon fuels; but, both Coal and CO2 are actually being so converted, so profitably utilized, in other nations of the world, including China, South Africa and Iceland.
The nation of Iceland, according to the best reports available and, because of language barriers, accessible to us, is now, through the company Carbon Recycling International, or "CRI", operating a commercial facility that reclaims Carbon Dioxide, from industrial and/or natural volcanic sources, and converts that CO2 into Methanol; actually, into what they call "Renewable Methanol", or "RM", which might now be an officially registered European trade or product name.
We began making report of them to you very nearly three years ago now, as seen, for example, from the fall of 2009, in:
West Virginia Coal Association | CO2 + Iceland = New Kuwait | Research & Development; wherein we learned that Carbon Recycling International, Ehf, was founded in 2006, and "captures carbon dioxide from industrial emissions and converts carbon dioxide to renewable fuel, including renewable methanol and renewable Di-Methyl-Ether (DME), and that "fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, can be derived from these feed stocks. CRI is a venture-backed Icelandic American company with headquarters in Iceland and operations in Iceland."
To dispel what might, perhaps, be a distraction, the "Ehf" stands for "Einkahlutafelag", which is, simply, the Icelandic version of "Incorporated", or "Inc", meaning that it is an official business corporation whose officers have limited or restricted ownership of, and responsibility for, it.
In that dispatch, and via links included in that dispatch, you could have learned that two Americans of considerable note were associated with CRI, Ehf:
Nobel Laureate George Olah and his University of Southern California colleague, Surya Prakash, both of whom, as we documented in a number of separate reports, such as:
West Virginia Coal Association | Southern California Recycles More CO2 | Research & Development; which concerned, in part, both:
"United States Patent 7,608,743 - Efficient and Selective Chemical Recycling of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol, Dimethyl Ether and Derived Products; 2009; Inventors: George Olah and Surya Prakash; Assignee: The University of Southern California, Los Angeles; Abstract: An efficient and environmentally beneficial method of recycling and producing methanol from varied sources of carbon dioxide including flue gases of fossil fuel burning powerplants"; and:
"United States Patent 5,928,806 - Recycling of Carbon Dioxide into Methyl Alcohol; 1999; Inventors: George Olah and Surya Prakash; Abstract: A regenerative electrochemical cell system based on a fuel cell to oxidize methyl alcohol or other oxygenated hydrocarbons coupled with a regenerative cell to reduce carbon dioxide to form oxygenated hydrocarbons is disclosed";
had, over the course of more than a decade, worked to establish what should now be seen as a plain fact:
Carbon Dioxide, as it arises in only a very small way, relative to natural sources of emission, such as volcanoes, from our essential use of Coal in the generation of truly affordable and abundant electrical power, is a raw material resource of potentially great value; a raw material resource from which we can synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels and the basic ingredients for the further synthesis of plastics and other industrial commodities.
Over the course of our reportage, we also documented that others, as well, had begun to develop similar and related Carbon Dioxide recycling technologies, as, from last year, seen in:
West Virginia Coal Association | More Iceland CO2 + H2O = Diesel Fuel, Methanol & Gasoline | Research & Development; concerning:
"United States Patent Application: 20070244208 - Liquid Fuels From Carbon Dioxide And Water; 2007; Inventors: Arthur Shulenberger, et. al., Iceland and California; Abstract: A process for producing high octane fuel from carbon dioxide and water is disclosed. The feedstock for the production line is industrial carbon dioxide and water, which may be of lower quality. The end product can be high octane gasoline, high cetane diesel or other liquid hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for driving conventional combustion engines or hydrocarbons suitable for further industrial processing or commercial use. A process for production of liquid fuel from carbon dioxide and water using electricity".
That United States Patent Application was, as we documented via separate report, accompanied by a matching application made to the international World Patent Organization:
West Virginia Coal Association | Iceland Seeks CO2 Recycling World Patent | Research & Development.
In those reports, since the eventual Assignee of Rights is often not named in early published versions of patent applications, we were unable to provide you with information concerning who, if anyone, was backing "Shulenberger, et. al"; and, who might, in fact, eventually operate the CO2-recycling process of the invention.
As it happens, "US Patent Application: 20070244208 - Liquid Fuels From Carbon Dioxide And Water", was just approved as a viable and perfectly feasible innovative technology by our own United States Government experts at the United States Patent and Trademark Office; and, we can now know who will likely reduce that CO2-recycling technology to practice, as seen in excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 8,198,338 - Process for Producing Liquid Fuel from Carbon Dioxide and Water
(Process for producing liquid fuel from carbon dioxide and water - CRI EHF;
Patent US8198338 - Process for producing liquid fuel from carbon dioxide and water - Google Patents)
Date: June 12, 2012
Inventors: Arthur M. Shulenberger, et. al., California and Iceland
Assignee: CRI EHF, Iceland
(The above is, in fact, "Carbon Recycling International, Ehf", who are operating what is known as the "George Olah Plant", in Iceland, right now, where they are converting CO2 into Methanol)
Abstract: A process for producing high octane fuel from carbon dioxide and water is disclosed. The feedstock for the production line is industrial carbon dioxide and water, which may be of lower quality. The end product can be high octane gasoline, high cetane diesel or other liquid hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for driving conventional combustion engines or hydrocarbons suitable for further industrial processing or commercial use. Products, such as dimethyl ether or methanol may also be withdrawn from the production line. The process is emission free and reprocesses all hydrocarbons not suitable for liquid fuel to form high octane products. The heat generated by exothermic reactions in the process is fully utilized as is the heat produced in the reprocessing of hydrocarbons not suitable for liquid fuel.
(Please note: Despite all of the blather you've heard about Carbon Dioxide being too stable a molecule to make reactive without spending far more energy in doing so than you could possibly get in return, some reactions in the total process, as we've documented in separate reports concerning related technologies developed by other entities, are exothermic; that is, they generate heat energy which can be reclaimed and then utilized to help drive other, endothermic and energy-demanding reactions within the total process.)
Claims: A process for production of a liquid fuel from carbon dioxide and water using electricity, comprising:
(a) capturing carbon dioxide from a concentrated carbon dioxide stream within a mixed industrial gas stream;
(b) purifying said concentrated carbon dioxide by separating other constituents from said mixed industrial gas stream;
(c) providing water and electricity and electrolyzing the water into hydrogen and oxygen;
(d) reacting a mixture of purified carbon dioxide from step (b) and hydrogen in the presence of a catalyst to produce methanol, carbon monoxide, water, and at least one hydrocarbon byproduct wherein heat is generated and controlled by increasing the relative amount of said carbon monoxide to increase said heat and/or by adding said carbon dioxide to decrease said heat;
(e) reacting methanol and a mixture of said carbon monoxide and unreacted hydrogen from step (d) in at least one step to obtain said liquid fuel; and
(f) reacting oxygen from step (c) and said at least one hydrocarbon byproduct to produce additional carbon monoxide and hydrogen for increased production of said liquid fuel.
2. The process ... further comprising the steps of:
(g) separating hydrocarbon byproducts from said liquid fuel;
(h) reacting said separated hydrocarbon byproducts from step (g) to produce said carbon monoxide and/or said carbon dioxide, said hydrogen, and water; and
(i) introducing said carbon monoxide and/or carbon dioxide and said hydrogen produced in step (h) to the reactions of step(s) (d) and/or (e) to produce said liquid fuel.
The process ... wherein heat from said liquid fuel synthesis in step (e) is utilized to drive the production of said carbon monoxide and said water in step (d).
(Again, note, in the above, the internal recycling and reuse of exothermic chemical reaction energy.)
The process ... wherein said mixed industrial gas stream is selected from the group consisting of a geothermal power plant, an aluminum plant, a coal fired power plant, and a cement production plant.
(As we have several times documented, we remind you, without cluttering this up any more with additional links, the production of both clean, green geothermal energy and plain old, conventional, non-Fly Ash Cement result in the emission of shocking amounts of Carbon Dioxide.)
The process ... wherein said liquid fuel synthesis in step ... comprises a one-step Fisher-Tropsch type process for producing said liquid fuel including gasoline and/or diesel.
The process ... wherein said hydrocarbon byproducts comprise one or more of the components selected from the group of unsaturated and saturated, linear and branched C1-C4 hydrocarbons including methane, ethane, ethene, ethyne, butane, butene, tert-butane, propane and isobutane.
(We can, thus, it seems, synthesize just about any hydrocarbon we might want out of CO2.)
The process ... wherein total electrical energy consumption of the electrolysis step (c) is lowered by using excess energy from recycling of hydrocarbons not suitable for use as said liquid fuel and/or by using excess energy from exothermic steps in the production process.
The process ... wherein the total electrical energy consumption of the electrolysis step (c) is lowered by using heat energy generated in other step(s) of the process for compression of the electrolysis products.
The process ... wherein the total electrical energy consumption of the electrolysis step (c) is lowered by using heat energy generated in other step(s) of the process converted to electric energy to supply electric power to the electrolysis.
(Again: Internal energy recycling contributes to the total process of Carbon Dioxide recycling.)
The process ... wherein the product ratio of said carbon monoxide to said methanol is optimized to an extent where the exothermic synthesis of said methanol supplies most or all of the required heat to run the mildly endothermic production of carbon monoxide.
The process ... wherein product ratio, including said methanol formation, is controlled by adjusting composition of said carbon monoxide and said hydrogen in step (e) (and) wherein generated heat in the process is used for compression, preheating of reactant streams, or to drive endothermic reactions in the process.
(And) wherein work required for compression is reduced by utilizing said carbon dioxide provided in pressurized, liquefied, or frozen condition.
The process ... wherein a part of the unreacted hydrogen from step (d) is removed by semi-permeable membrane means and recycled in the process.
The process ... wherein said hydrocarbon byproducts are reacted with oxygen in step (f) in a process selected from the group consisting of a partial oxidation process, an auto thermal process, a steam reforming process, and a total oxidation process to produce said carbon monoxide and said hydrogen.
The process ... wherein the synthesis of said liquid fuel ... comprises the production of any one or combination of dimethyl ether, methanol, gasoline, and diesel.
Background and Field: The present invention is broadly within the field of energy conversion and relates to processes for producing hydrogen by electrolysis of water, processes for reacting hydrogen with carbon dioxide for producing methanol and/or producing syngas and processes for synthetic liquid fuel production.
Currently, two processes have been used on industrial scale to produce synthetic liquid hydrocarbon fuel. One is the SASOL process which is based on classic Fisher-Tropsch chemistry and converts coal to syngas, which is converted to a variety of hydrocarbons via the Fisher-Tropsch synthesis. The other is the Mobil Methanol-to-Gasoline process (MTG) ... .
Syngas or synthesis gas is a term used for gases of varying composition that are generated in coal gasification ... and some types of waste-to-energy facilities. The name comes from their use in creating synthetic petroleum for use as a fuel or lubricant via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis.
(Gosh, it all comes back to the bedrock, doesn't it? This CO2-recycling technology is actually founded on almost one-century-old Coal conversion technology.)
The Fisher Tropsch process was developed by the German researchers Franz Fisher and Hans Tropsch in the 1920s. It is a well documented process that has been used on industrial scale for production of diesel and other synthetic petroleum products for decades. This process is used by a number of companies today to produced low-sulfur diesel and other petroleum products on large scale. For example, SASOL has implemented this process since 1955 to produce petroleum fuel.
(No links. Just use the West Virginia Coal Association's Research and Development search utility to find "South Africa" or "SASOL", i.e., "South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited".)
Summary: The present invention provides a integrated, emission-free process for conversion of carbon dioxide and water to liquid fuel, such as high octane gasoline or diesel, suitable to drive combustion engines. The process may also be used to produce other hydrocarbons or hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for driving conventional combustion engines or hydrocarbons suitable for further industrial processing or other commercial use. Intermediate products such as methanol or dimethylether may also be generated by the production process of the invention. The overall process comprises in a preferred embodiment the conversion of water and carbon dioxide to C5+ hydrocarbons (i.e., with five or more carbon atoms), preferably C5-C10 hydrocarbons. The overall process may also encompass the conversion of water and carbon dioxide to high cetane diesel or other liquid hydrocarbon mixtures suitable for driving conventional diesel combustion engines.
Accordingly, the present invention provides in one aspect a process for production of liquid fuel from carbon dioxide and water using electricity, comprising: providing water and electricity and electrolyzing the water into hydrogen and oxygen, providing carbon dioxide and reacting it with the obtained hydrogen to produce methanol and/or carbon monoxide and water, where said methanol can comprise the desired final product or be reacted further to liquid hydrocarbon fuel, or, in the case of carbon monoxide intermediate production, reacting the obtained carbon monoxide with hydrogen in one or more steps to produce liquid fuel, which can be methanol or other liquid fuel such as liquid hydrocarbon fuel."
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Make no mistake:
We can, efficiently and profitably, convert CO2 into "high octane gasoline" and premium "high cetane diesel".
The official US Government confirmation of that fact we enclose in this dispatch was just published.
The issue of Carbon Dioxide is critical to the economic health of United States Coal Country.
The supply of "high octane gasoline" and premium "high cetane diesel" is critical to the economic health of the entire United States of America.
If this official US Government confirmation of how we can fill one of those needs by profitably resolving another is not re-published for you in the headlines of any of your Coal Country newspapers, immediately, all of you must, as we here - - for these, and other, separate, reasons - - have been asking ourselves for the past half dozen years, start to ask, openly, publicly and loudly, of the journalists behind those Coal Country newspapers:
"Who's side are you on?
Now. Now is the time to stand up alongside, to stand with, your brothers and your sisters, your family; or:
Now. Now is the time to give it up, confess who and what you are, and, to slink away from the light, back into the darkness, into the shadows, where you belong.
If you Coal Country journalists don't have the moral courage, the clearness of heart, to openly proclaim the truth now, when it is so critically important, then you, we, all of us, would have been far better off had we never known you, and had never, ever counted on you to speak the truth and to do what was right.
