Concerning our headline, to be clear:
"Hydrocarbon Synthesis Gas", or just "Syngas", is typically used to mean a blend of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen which can, as explained via:
Syngas - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "Syngas (or Synthesis gas) is the name given to a gas mixture that contains varying amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Examples of production methods include the gasification of coal (and) biomass. Syngas is used as an intermediate in producing synthetic petroleum for use as a fuel or lubricant via (for one example) the Fischer-Tropsch process"; and, via:
Syngas as fuel - What is syngas - Synthesis gas; "Syngas is the direct end-product of the gasification process. Though it can be used as a standalone fuel, the energy density of Syngas is only about 50 percent that of natural gas and is therefore mostly suited for use in producing transportation fuels and other chemical products. As its unabbreviated name implies, Synthesis gas is mainly used as an intermediary building block for the final production (synthesis) of various fuels such as synthetic natural gas, methanol and synthetic petroleum fuel (synthesized gasoline and diesel fuel)";
be made from Coal and then be chemically reacted and condensed, via a range of catalytic processing options most often, but sometimes inappropriately, labeled as "Fischer-Tropsch", into a full and complete range of both liquid and gaseous conventional hydrocarbons. Those facts are more explicitly stated by the University of Pittsburgh, via:
ScienceDirect.com - Fuel Processing Technology - Reactions of synthesis gas; "Reactions of Synthesis Gas; Irving Wender; Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Department, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA; Methanol not only remains the second largest consumer of syngas but has shown remarkable growth as part of the methyl ethers used as octane enhancers in automotive fuels. The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis remains the third largest consumer of syngas, mostly for transportation fuels but also as a growing feedstock source for the manufacture of chemicals, including polymers. Future growth in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis may take place outside the continental United States".
The University of Pittsburgh's statement that "growth" in the use of Coal, via the "Fischer-Tropsch synthesis", to manufacture "transportation fuels" and "chemicals, including polymers", might have to "take place outside the continental United States", is, we think, a somewhat veiled and knowledgeable summation of the effect of the largely surreptitious and economically-motivated political forces arrayed behind the scenes against such use of Coal in the United States. That, even though, as explained by the United States Environmental Protection Agency itself in:
West Virginia Coal Association | US EPA Recommends Coal Liquefaction as a Clean Alternative | Research & Development; concerning: "Clean Alternative Fuels: Fischer-Tropsch; United States Environmental Protection Agency; EPA420-F-00-036; March 2002; A Success Story (!) For the past 50 years, Fischer-Tropsch fuels have powered all of South Africa’s vehicles, from buses to trucks to taxicabs. The fuel is primarily supplied by Sasol, a world leader in Fischer-Tropsch technologies. Sasol’s South African facility produces more than 150,000 barrels of high quality fuel from domestic low-grade coal daily (which) fuel is cost-competitive with crude oil-based petroleum products. Fischer-Tropsch technology converts coal ... into a high-value, clean-burning fuel";
such Coal-based, via synthesis gas, fuels are not only "clean-burning", but are "cost-competitive with crude oil-based petroleum" conventional hydrocarbon fuels. And, ten years ago, those facts had been proven through commercial-scale industrial practice, elsewhere in the world, for more than half a century.
The prominent "Fischer-Tropsch process", which led to South Africa's broad employment of Coal to, through "Syngas (or Synthesis gas) ... a gas mixture that contains varying amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen" manufacture "high quality" and "cost-competitive" liquid hydrocarbon fuels is, itself, as can be learned via:
Fischer–Tropsch process - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; "The Fischer–Tropsch process ... (or Fischer–Tropsch synthesis) is a collection of chemical reactions that converts a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen into liquid hydrocarbons. The process ... produces a synthetic lubrication oil and synthetic fuel, typically from coal, (and was invented) by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working ... in the 1920s (and)was commercialized ... in Germany in 1936";
a relatively old process that should long, long ago have been broadly treated and openly, fully discussed in the US Coal Country public media.
But, as old as the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of liquid hydrocarbon fuels from Coal-derived synthesis gas itself is, as we saw in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Massachusetts Civil War Coal Hydrogasification | Research & Development; concerning: "US Patent 42,772 - Apparatus for Distilling Off Gases and Vapors; 1864; Inventor: John Howarth, Salem, Massachusetts; The present invention relates to a process of distilling coals and other carbonaceous materials in which both internal and external heat are applied to (extract) volatile products from coal, wood, & etc., ... .The object of the present invention is to so construct an apparatus for the production of oils, gases, & etc., from carbonaceous materials. (The) apparatus (can be) operated to form hydrogen alone or hydrocarbon gaseous vapors, or to produce oil";
the know-how to produce "hydrocarbon gaseous vapors", perhaps an earlier label for Synthesis Gas, from both "coal" and naturally CO2-recycling "wood" is even older.
And, herein, we see how, more than one and one-quarter centuries ago, advanced and sophisticated the knowledge and technology for converting Coal into such seemingly-valuable blends of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen synthesis gas had actually become.
Comment follows and is inserted within excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent 290,926 - Process Of And Apparatus For Manufacturing Gas
Date: December 25, 1883
Inventor: Henry Rew, Chicago, Illinois
Be it known that I, Henry C. Rew, of Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Processes of and Apparatus for Manufacturing Gas; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, which will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the letters of reference marked thereon, which form part of this specification.
This invention relates to the manufacture of illuminating and heating gas from steam, carbonaceous fuel, and hydrocarbon oil in a continuous manner; and the invention consists in the particular process and the apparatus hereinafter defined in the claims.
Heretofore in the manufacture of gas by the cupola process, where regenerators have been used as heat-storing chambers, and for subsequently heating air of superheating steam and fixing enriched or carbureted gases, these regenerating chambers have been connected by flues conducting products of combustion directly with the fuel and generating chambers, (either in the same of an adjoining structure,) and such regenerators have been heated by products of combustion from the fuel chambers, in which the fires were urged by strong blasts of air. The effect of this has been to drive the fine dust and ashes of the fuel into the regenerators, and to clog up the passages in the refractory material to an injurious extent, thereby retarding their operation and hindering the manufacture of gas.
Furthermore, in blasting up the fires by a strong blast of air, the effect has been to more highly heat that portion of the fuel which was in close proximity to the air blast and to cause the ash to be fused into clinkers, which clogged the fires. Portions of clinker have also obstructed the fuel chamber by firmly adhering to the walls thereof, and have been so difficult of removal that the fires have had to be drawn out entirely at times to remove this debris from the fuel chamber, thus stopping for the time required for the operation the manufacture of gas.
This has proved quite objectionable, for the reason that in drawing the slag the large amount of heat contained in it has been allowed to go to waste, and the manufacture of gas has also had to be discontinued while the slag was being drawn.
To overcome (the) objections, and to so handle the ash that it can be removed without waste of heat or without discontinuing manufacture of gas, and without adhesion of clinkers to the walls of the fuel chamber, are the objects of this invention.
Previous cupola processes have demonstrated that the operation of heating a large body of fuel by blasts of air is a very defective one, for the reason that the air forced into the fuel changes its form after passing a very small distance into the fuel, and combines with the carbon of the coal, forming carbonic oxide and nitrogen, gases which are non-supporters of combustion, and therefore unfit to accomplish the object of bringing the fuel to a white heat beyond that small limit.
(The above "cupola", which is referred to multiple times in the full disclosure, is an early innovation evolving from the refining of iron ore, as a secondary "purification", as it were, process for raw iron produced by the primary ore reduction furnace. The concept has been in practice for literally thousands of years; and, Rew's point herein is, that, even though a cupola is capable of producing flammable gases from Coal, primarily Carbon Monoxide, which chemically reduces Iron Oxides, they use regular air to effect the partial oxidation of Coal, which leads to the production of unwanted and wasteful Nitrogen Oxides. Thus, not only does Rew's "indirect" gasification process herein prevent to a large extent the introduction of Carbon Dioxide into the product gas stream, it also prevents or limits the contamination and dilution of the product Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide mixture with Nitrogen Oxides. Pretty sophisticated thinking, really, for 1883.)
By my process of highly and uniformly heating a body of fuel by the use of highly-superheated steam under pressure, the above defect is entirely overcome. The oxygen of the steam combines with the carbon of the coal, forming carbonic oxide and setting hydrogen free, the two passing off together to the fixing chamber, thus making way instantly for fresh steam from the superheating chamber, which, reacting upon the fuel, causes a mutual and continuous decomposition of the two substances, giving rising to the continuous production of carbonic oxide and hydrogen without contamination with inert and deleterious nitrogen.
When bituminous coal is used, the hydrocarbons are volatilized and the sold carbon is taken up by the oxygen of the steam in a continuous manner.
Moreover, in the manufacture of gas heretofore by the cupola process, the operation has not been a continuous one. Complete cessation of the manufacture and frequent delays have been occasioned by stopping to add fresh fuel and to blast up the fires, and to remove ash, clinkers, cinders and slag. To remove these objections and to make the manufacture of gas continuous are objects of my invention. Moreover, heretofore by previous processes the heat-storing chambers have been heated by the combustion of raw solid fuel, and not by properly-prepared gaseous fuel, and not in a quick or economical manner. To heat the various chambers containing refractory material in the quickest and most economical manner is one of the objects of my invention.
My invention is designed to utilize any kind of gas-producing materials, solid or liquid, (or mixed,) so that whatever material is within reach and most economical can be used.
Claims: The process of generating gas which consists in heating a body of carbonaceous fuel by continuously forcing superheated steam into it, and thereby heating it to the decomposing temperature and causing decomposition of the steam into hydrogen and carbonic oxide ... ."
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Our excerpts don't fully explain Rew's rather sophisticated process. As his attached illustrations help to make clear, and in sum, in refractory chambers attached directly to and in full contact with, but designed so that their contents don't mix into, the Coal gasification chamber, fuel is combusted to heat refractory and heat-absorbing particles.
Heat from those chambers conducts to the gasification chamber and preheats the Coal, while Steam is passed through and/or around the heating chambers and their refractory particles, to be superheated before being conducted into, and reacted with, the pre-heated Coal.
The effect is that reaction between the Carbon in the already indirectly-heated Coal and the "superheated" H2O of the Steam forms Hydrogen and "carbonic oxide"; which carbonic oxide, as can be learned via:
Carbonic oxide - definition of Carbonic oxide by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia., and: carbonic oxide;
definitely means the reactive and desired Carbon Monoxide, not Carbon Dioxide.
And, this invention really is an early version of the type of Coal hydro-gasification process represented, for one example, by our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Switzerland Hydrogasifies Coal with Solar Power | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 4,149,856 - Producing a Gaseous Fuel by Means of Solar Energy; 1979; Inventor: Willy Keller, Switzerland; Abstract: A gaseous fuel is produced, utilizing thermolysis and a water-gas reaction, by heating a piece of carbon through exposure to reflector-focused solar radiation and contacting it with steam. A method for producing a gaseous fuel of the type wherein steam is brought into contact with red-hot carbon ... . The production of water gas has long been known and used in the manufacture of fuel gas, steam being passed over glowing coal or coke. In this operation, the steam is reduced in an endothermic process, and a gaseous mixture composed of substantially equal parts of CO and H2 is produced";
wherein heat is indirectly applied to Coal and Steam, without any partial combustion of the raw material Coal to provide that heat, and, which externally-supplied heat drives the reaction between "C" and "H2O" to form the Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen components of hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
In the process of our subject, "United States Patent 290,926 - Process Of And Apparatus For Manufacturing Gas", some fuel is being combusted externally to provide the reaction heat for the Coal and the Steam; and, that combustion no doubt generates Carbon Dioxide outside of the process stream.
As illustrated by our above reference to "United States Patent 4,149,856 - Producing a Gaseous Fuel by Means of Solar Energy", we might have some better ways to go about supplying external heat nowadays; but, even if we don't, as seen, for only one example, in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Exxon Recycles CO2 | Research & Development; concerning the report: "Iron catalyzed CO2 hydrogenation to liquid hydrocarbons; Rocco A. Fiato, et. al.,
Exxon Research and Engineering Company; Many of the catalysts which are useful in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis are also capable of catalyzing the hydrogenation of CO2 to hydrocarbons. Our structure-function studies have shown that it is possible to control the selectivity of CO2 hydrogenation by specific iron-based catalysts to generate yields of C5 + hydrocarbons that are comparable to those produced with conventional CO based feedstocks";
Carbon Dioxide, too, can serve as a raw material in the "Fischer-Tropsch synthesis" of hydrocarbons; and, that's a plain fact all of us need to wake up to before extortions like Cap & Trade taxes are levied against our vital, essential Coal-based power generating stations.
In any case, though, herein we see, that, basically one and one quarter centuries ago, they had, in the city our current United States President once called home, figured out how to efficiently make a fairly pure blend of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen out of Coal.
And, not quite one half of a century after that, some bright lads in Germany named Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch figured out that such a blend of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen could be catalytically condensed into liquid hydrocarbon fuels, into direct replacements for materials usually derived from natural petroleum.
Just how much longer, do you suppose, will it take for all of that good news about Coal, news first generated more than a century ago in Chicago, Illinois, to reach us here, in the heart of United States Coal Country?