United States Patent Application: 0090042998
Four years ago, in a report now accessible via:
West Virginia Coal Association | CO2 Solution Wins Nobel Prize - in 1912 | Research & Development; concerning: "Paul Sabatier" winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and his Nobel Lecture, delivered on December 11, 1912, in which he related: "During the period 1901 to 1905, together with Senderens, I showed that nickel is very suitable for the direct hydrogenation of nitriles into amines and, no less important, of aldehydes and acetones into corresponding alcohols. Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are both changed immediately into methane, which can therefore be synthesized with the greatest ease";
we documented for you that we have known for one full century that we can synthesize substitute natural gas Methane from Carbon Dioxide "with the greatest ease".
Much more recently, via our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | NASA Improves CO2 to Methane Conversion | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent Application 20120029095 - Sabatier Process and Apparatus for Controlling Exothermic Reaction; 2012; Abstract: A Sabatier process involving contacting carbon dioxide and hydrogen in a first reaction zone with a first catalyst bed ... so as to produce a product stream comprising water and methane. ... Government Interests: This invention was made with support from the U.S. government under U.S. Contract No. NNX10CF25P sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration";we documented that some people we all should probably be listening to have been at work improving that process, wherein Carbon Dioxide, as recovered from whatever handy source, can be easily and readily converted into Methane.
And, herein, we again confirm the reality of that chemical process for recycling Carbon Dioxide, via exposition of even further improvements being made upon it by scientists in Japan.
As seen, with comment inserted and appended, in excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to:
"United States Patent Application 20090042998 - Catalyst for Methanation of Carbon Oxides
Date: February 12, 2009
Inventors: Koji Hashimoto, et. al., Japan
Assignee: Daiki Ataka Engineering Company, Tokyo
Abstract: Disclosed is a catalyst for methanation reaction producing methane with high conversion by reaction of hydrogen with carbon dioxide, or a gas mixture of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide ... .
The catalyst is prepared by ... mixing aqueous zirconia sol with salts of stabilizing element(s), which is selected from the group consisting of Yttrium, Lanthanum, Cesium, ... Calcium and Magnesium, and iron group element(s), drying and calcining the mixture to obtain a catalyst precursor, and subsequent reduction of the precursor.
The catalyst is characterized by multiple oxide of tetragonal zirconia structure, in which not only the stabilizing element(s) but also a part of the iron group element(s) is incorporated, and on which the iron group element(s) in the metallic state is supported.
(Nickel, as in the original 1912 Sabatier process, is an "iron group element". And, as can be learned for one example via:
Nissan Chemical - Zirconia Sol; "NanoUse(R) ZR; Through patented production technologies Nissan Chemical has developed an unprecedented water-based zirconia sol";
the perhaps exotic-sounding "zirconia sol" is an established type of industrial product, which is commercially available.)
Claims: A catalyst for ... producing methane by hydrogenating carbon dioxide ... consisting of, based on the metals in the elemental state:
A) Zirconium for providing tetragonal zirconia supporter;
B) one or more of tetragonal zirconia-stabilizing element selected from the group consisting of Yttrium, Lanthanum, Cesium, ... Calcium and Magnesium ... and:
C) at least one of the iron group elements being supported on the tetragonal zirconia supporter and acting as the active site: 25-80 atomic %; wherein the supporter, the tetragonal zirconia structure oxide, is stabilized by incorporating not only the stabilizing element or elements but also a portion of the iron group element or elements; and wherein the iron group element or elements in the metallic state are supported on the supporter.
The catalyst for methanation reaction ... wherein the iron group element ... is Nickel (and/or) Nickel and one or both of Cobalt and Iron ... .
A process for preparing the catalyst for methanation ... comprising the steps of: mixing aqueous zirconia sol, aqueous solution of the stabilizing element or elements, and aqueous solution of the iron group element or elements in such a ratio (as specified in foregoing claims); concentrating the mixture to dry and calcining; and then subjecting to reducing treatment to form the catalyst in which the iron group element or elements in the metallic state are supported on the tetragonal zirconia structure oxide stabilized by incorporating the stabilizing element or elements as well as a portion of the iron group element or elements.
A process for methanation ... which comprises contacting a mixed gas of carbon dioxide ... and hydrogen with the catalyst ... .
(Elemental, molecular Hydrogen, as above, is required for this Carbon Dioxide utilization process; just as it is for the original Sabatier reaction. And, we remind you, that, as seen for only one out of now many examples in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | USDOE Renewable Hydrogen for Coal Liquefaction | Research & Development; concerning the USDOE compilation: "Renewable Hydrogen Production for Fossil Fuel Processing; OSTI ID: 10180379; DOE Contract Number: AC05-84OR21400; 1994; Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab., TN; Sponsor: USDOE; Abstract: The objective of this mission-oriented research program is the production of renewable hydrogen for fossil fuel processing. This program will build upon promising results that have been obtained in the Chemical Technology Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory on the utilization of intact microalgae for photosynthetic water splitting. In this process, specially adapted algae are used to perform the light-activated cleavage of water into its elemental constituents, molecular hydrogen and oxygen. ... The purpose of this project is applied research and development for the design and construction of a real-world engineering system that is capable of producing renewable hydrogen from water";
we have some options available to us for the economical generation of Hydrogen from Water.)
A process for methanation of ... carbon dioxide ... and hydrogen with the catalyst as (specified in foregoing claims).
Background and Field: The present invention concerns a catalyst for methanation or formation of methane by reaction of hydrogen with carbon dioxide ... . The invention also concerns method of preparing the catalyst and the process for the methanation using the catalyst.
(This) method of producing methane by reaction of carbon dioxide with hydrogen is expected to prevent global warming and supply fuel. Also, hope is placed on the technology of producing fuel gas with high combustion energy ... .
The inventors (have) discovered the fact that ribbon-shaped amorphous alloys, prepared by rapid quenching of the liquid state, consisting of an iron group element ... and ... metal such as Zirconium, (etc.) are effective catalysts for methane synthesis ... .
The selectivity to methane formation achieved by these catalysts is almost 100% and the conversion rate is very fast at ambient pressure. However, the process for producing the catalyst alloys, rapid quenching from the liquid state, is not suitable for mass production, and the applicable systems of ribbon-shaped catalysts are limited.
On the basis of the above-mentioned discovery the inventors developed a method of producing powder-shaped catalyst, mass-production of which is much easier than the ribbon-shaped catalysts ... .
On the catalyst of the present invention an ideal situation can be realized: (any) poisonous carbon monoxide in the gas mixture of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and hydrogen is preferentially and selectively converted to methane, and thereafter, carbon dioxide is converted to methane with the remaining hydrogen. Furthermore, the production of the catalyst according to the present invention is easy."
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Not really discussed in the full Disclosure is whether, as in the original and some later versions of the Sabatier process, the reaction herein, which converts Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen into Methane, is exothermic enough so that thermal energy is generated in sufficient amounts to make heat removal necessary; which exothermic reaction heat could perhaps be utilized, along with the Methane produced via the catalyst and process disclosed by our subject herein, "US Patent Application 20090042998 - Catalyst for Methanation of Carbon Oxides", in other, follow-on processes, perhaps like that seen in our report of:
West Virginia Coal Association | Saudia Arabia CO2 + Methane = Hydrocarbons + Syngas | Research & Development; concerning: "United States Patent 7,355,088 - Process for Producing Benzene, Ethylene and Synthesis Gas; 2008; Assignee: Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia); Abstract: Process for producing benzene, ethylene and synthesis gas, comprising the steps of: i) introducing a starting gas flow comprising methane and carbon dioxide into a reactor (and) removing a product gas flow comprising benzene, ethylene and synthesis gas from the reactor";wherein the Methane synthesized from Carbon Dioxide can be reacted with even more Carbon Dioxide, with the products of that reaction being both various hydrocarbons and a hydrocarbon "synthesis gas", which can itself be catalytically, chemically condensed, as via perhaps the Fischer-Tropsch process, into even more hydrocarbons.
In any case, it is again demonstrated:
Carbon Dioxide - - as is emitted in only a small way, relative to the Earth's inexorable and all-natural processes of planetary volcanism, from our economically essential use of Coal in the generation of truly abundant and truly affordable electric power - - is a valuable raw material resource.
We can reclaim CO2 from whatever convenient source, and, then, as herein, efficiently convert it into a substitute natural gas we don't have to put our groundwater at risk by drilling and fracking for: Methane.