As we occasionally note, some, but not all, of the seemingly more effective processes for converting our abundant Coal and our some-say-too-abundant Carbon Dioxide into needed hydrocarbons, as, for just two examples, seen in:
West Virginia Coal Association | Exxon Multi-Stage Hydrogen Donor Coal Liquefaction | Research & Development; concerning, in part: "United States Patent 4,210,518 - Hydrogen-donor Coal Liquefaction Process; 1980; Exxon Research and Engineering Company; Abstract: Improved liquid yields are obtained during the hydrogen-donor solvent liquefaction of coal ... . Government Interests: The Government of the United States of America has rights in this invention pursuant to Contract No. E(49-18)-2353 awarded by the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration. Claims: A hydrogen-donor liquefaction process for converting coal or similar carbonaceous solids into lower molecular weight liquid hydrocarbons. In processes of this type, the coal ... is contacted with molecular hydrogen and a hydrogen-donor solvent at elevated temperature and pressure in a liquefaction zone"; and:
West Virginia Coal Association | USDOE CO2 + Hydrogen = Methanol and Ethanol | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,858,667 - Alcohol Synthesis from CO or CO2; 2010;
Battelle Memorial Institute; Abstract: Methods for producing alcohols from CO or CO2 and H2 utilizing a palladium-zinc (Pd--Zn) on alumina catalyst are described. Ethanol, higher alcohols, and other C2+ oxygenates can be produced utilizing Rh--Mn (Rhodium and Manganese) or a Fisher-Tropsch catalyst. A portion of this work was funded by the U.S. DOE ... under Contract DE-AC06-76RL01830. Claims: A method of synthesizing alcohols from CO or CO2 comprising: flowing a reactant gas mixture comprising H2 and CO or CO2 into contact with a catalyst ... and forming an alcohol or alcohols";
Battelle Memorial Institute; Abstract: Methods for producing alcohols from CO or CO2 and H2 utilizing a palladium-zinc (Pd--Zn) on alumina catalyst are described. Ethanol, higher alcohols, and other C2+ oxygenates can be produced utilizing Rh--Mn (Rhodium and Manganese) or a Fisher-Tropsch catalyst. A portion of this work was funded by the U.S. DOE ... under Contract DE-AC06-76RL01830. Claims: A method of synthesizing alcohols from CO or CO2 comprising: flowing a reactant gas mixture comprising H2 and CO or CO2 into contact with a catalyst ... and forming an alcohol or alcohols";
require the addition of elemental, molecular Hydrogen, H2, as a co-reactant for the CO2 and the Coal.
And, we consequently make the effort to demonstrate for you from time to time that getting our hands on a little bit of elemental Hydrogen to use in such seemingly-desirable processes, which could help to free us from our current economic enslavement OPEC; to put more Americans to work; and, to get the greenhouse gas zealots off of King Coal's back, isn't that much of a technical or economic hurdle to overcome.
Many technologies for the efficient production of molecular Hydrogen, which is, in fact, an abundant element, and which technologies employ freely-available environmental energies to get the job done, are already available for us to put to work, as seen, for just one example, in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Japan Hydrogen from Water and Sunlight | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,909,979 - Water Photolysis System and Process; 2011; Inventor: Yuka Yamada, et. al.; Assignee: Panasonic Corporation, Japan; Abstract: The present invention provides a water photolysis system (in which water) vapor is decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen by ... sunlight".
The above Panasonic, as can be learned via:
Panasonic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; were actually founded in 1918 as the "Matsushita Electric Industrial Company", and kept that official company name until 2008, when they became "Panasonic" in order to conform with the worldwide brand name of their best-known product line; and, are a huge global operation, especially after having, in 2009, assimilated their one-time competitor, Sanyo, likely another familiar name to American consumers and users of various electronic products and devices.
Panasonic don't themselves seem to have any active commercial interest in hydrocarbons, or hydrocarbon chemistry, per se; but, they are intensively involved in the Japanese government's drive toward what is known as the "Hydrogen" economy, wherein that element would become the primary carrier of energy, the primary "fuel".
The issues of energy in Japan are complex, politically-charged and actually highly evolved; and, are far beyond our scope of discussion herein. But, they do center on the generation, by one means or another, of Hydrogen; and, the use of Hydrogen primarily in what are known as fuel cells; which, again, have little to do with our issues.
Currently, Panasonic and their partners/competitors offer a number of initial commercial fuel cell offerings, including some for domestic heating and power supply, and for powering automobiles; in which fuel cells Hydrogen and Oxygen are combined in controlled reactions that generate not heat, but electricity. And, somewhat contradictory to their overall intent, most of Panasonic's and other Japanese companies' current fuel cell offerings rely on Hydrogen extracted from natural gas.
That, of course, is inherently unsustainable, especially in Japan, which imports virtually all of the natural gas she consumes. Thus, there has been concerted effort in the development of technologies for the efficient and economical extraction of Hydrogen from water, using environmental energies which are available in Japan to power the Hydrogen generation processes.
And, even though Japan and Panasonic are after economical supplies of Hydrogen for such fuel cell technologies, their development efforts make obtaining Hydrogen feasible for those of us in other nations who would prefer to use it for other, perhaps less utopian and idealistic, but, from our point of view, far more practical and economically achievable, purposes.
With apologies for that lengthy background discussion, herein we see that Panasonic has further developed their Hydrogen production technology, by designing what appears to us to be the mechanics of an installation that could enable the practical, industrial-scale operation of their above-cited "United States Patent 7,909,979 - Water Photolysis System and Process", and, thus, the production of Hydrogen for a commercial market.
Comment follows excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent Application 20110315545 - Hydrogen Generating Device
Date: December, 2011
Inventors: Tomohiro Kuroha, et. al., Japan
Assignee: Panasonic Corporation, Osaka
Abstract: A hydrogen generating device includes:
- a housing that is capable of holding a liquid therein, and that is at least partially transmissive to light;
- an electrolyte that is held in the housing and that contains water;
- a photoelectrode that is arranged in the housing, that has a first surface in contact with the electrolyte, and that generates gas through decomposition of the water by being irradiated with light transmitted through the housing; and,
- a conductor that is arranged in a region on the second surface side opposite to the first surface side with respect to the photoelectrode inside the housing, that has a surface in contact with the electrolyte, and that is connected electrically with the photoelectrode. The conductor has a groove portion that is provided on the surface in contact with the electrolyte, and that extends along the flow direction of the generated gas.
Claims: A hydrogen generating device comprising: a housing capable of holding a liquid therein, the housing being at least partially transmissive to light; an electrolyte held in the housing, the electrolyte containing water; a photoelectrode arranged in the housing, the photoelectrode having a first surface in contact with the electrolyte, and the photoelectrode generating gas through decomposition of the water by being irradiated with light transmitted through the housing; and a conductor arranged in a region on a second surface side opposite to the first surface side with respect to the photoelectrode inside the housing, the conductor having a surface in contact with the electrolyte, and the conductor being connected electrically with the photoelectrode, wherein the conductor has a groove portion provided on the surface in contact with the electrolyte, the groove portion extending along a flow direction of the generated gas.
The hydrogen generating device (with shapes and components as described).
The hydrogen generating device (with shapes and components as described).
The hydrogen generating device ... wherein the conductor is formed of ... Titanium, Tantalum, Zirconium or Aluminum.
The hydrogen generating device ... wherein a co-catalyst is provided in at least a part of the region other than the groove portion in the conductor (and) wherein the co-catalyst contains at least one selected from Platinum, Palladium, Rhodium, Iridium, Rubidium, Osmium, Gold, Silver, Copper, Nickel, Iron, Cobalt and Manganese.
Background and Field: The present invention relates to a hydrogen generating device that includes a photoelectrode having an optical semiconductor, and that generates hydrogen through water decomposition by irradiation of the photoelectrode with light such as sunlight.
There is a conventionally known method for obtaining hydrogen and oxygen through water decomposition by irradiation of an optical semiconductor material that functions as a photocatalyst with light (and) there also is a device in which the light absorption area is increased by forming roughness on an optical semiconductor itself, so that the light use efficiency is enhanced, thereby allowing the hydrogen production efficiency to be improved.
There is a conventionally known method for obtaining hydrogen and oxygen through water decomposition by irradiation of an optical semiconductor material that functions as a photocatalyst with light (and) there also is a device in which the light absorption area is increased by forming roughness on an optical semiconductor itself, so that the light use efficiency is enhanced, thereby allowing the hydrogen production efficiency to be improved.
The present (has as) an object ... to (improve) the hydrogen production efficiency in the hydrogen generating device that generates hydrogen through water decomposition by irradiation of the photoelectrode with light.
The hydrogen generating device of the present invention exhibits high hydrogen production efficiency ... ."
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We've abbreviated our excerpts from the full Disclosure in the extreme, since much of it is given over to detailed description of the design of a device that could, it is posited, be mounted on the roof of a house, where, supplied with nothing but water, it could harness enough sunlight to, through Panasonic's claimed efficiencies in design and catalysis, generate enough Hydrogen to power the home.
Industrial-scale use is also indicated and suggested; and, again, the description of the device is detailed enough so that one could be designed and built without much more effort going into it than translating the scales to fit the size of the reactor desired.
If we wanted to build one big enough to cover the top of Spruce Knob, instead of just the roof of a house, and thus make truly significant amounts of Hydrogen out of nothing but sunlight and water, we could.
Our point in presenting it to you is to again demonstrate, that, if we wished to begin operating a process like that described in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | WVU Hydrogenates Coal Tar | Research & Development; concerning: "Hydrogenation of Naphthalene and Coal Tar Distillate; Abhijit Bhagavatula; College of Engineering and Mineral Resource; Department of Chemical Engineering; (West Virginia University); Morgantown, West Virginia; The hydrogenation of naphthalene and coal-tar distillates has been carried out in a Trickle Bed Reactor, in which the liquid is allowed to flow through the catalyst bed in the presence of hydrogen. A 25 % increase in the percentage of hydrogen was observed from feed to product indicating that the trickle bed reactor can be used to hydrogenate coal-derived solvents. The booming price of crude oil along with a major decline in the domestic crude stocks, has accentuated the importance of alternate sources of fuel and chemical feedstocks. The process of converting solid coal to liquid is called liquefaction. Coal is liquefied by reacting with hydrogen. A particular characteristic of hydrogenation or hydroprocessing is that heavy feeds containing high percentage of nitrogen and sulfur can be treated easily thereby increasing the hydrogen-to-carbon ratio of the feed and thus the fuel value of the resulting oil (and) the direct reaction between coal and hydrogen, involves the conversion of coal to refinable crude hydrocarbons, from which liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, kerosene, etc., can be produced";
there is really nothing standing the way of our doing so, except for our continued, willful ignorance of the facts, that:
Coal can be efficiently converted into "liquid fuels such as gasoline", if we have some Hydrogen with which to effect, through known petroleum-refining type processes, the "hydrogenation of naphthalene and coal-tar distillates", and, then to effect "the direct reaction between coal and hydrogen", and, thus, "the conversion of coal to refinable crude hydrocarbons".
And, according herein to the Panasonic Corporation, through their disclosure of "United States Patent Application 20110315545 - Hydrogen Generating Device", which would, we conjecture, operate the process disclosed in Panasonic's "United States Patent 7,909,979 - Water Photolysis System and Process", we can make that Hydrogen out of nothing but sunlight and water.
What, we have to ask, is, besides willful ignorance and, maybe, laziness, stopping us from doing so?