Carbon Dioxide, as we could reclaim from the stack gases of our economically essential Coal-fired power plants or harvest even from the atmosphere itself, is a valuable raw material resource.
Carbon Dioxide can be used and consumed as the key raw material in industrial processes that synthesize, as end products, any and all types of hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals.
We could, in United States Coal Country, begin to establish industries based on the productive recycling of Carbon Dioxide that would lead to greater employment and prosperity for Coal Country, hydrocarbon fuel independence for the United States of America, and an unshackling of the damaging economic chains that bind us so painfully to OPEC.
Instead, those hurtful chains are about to grow even stronger, and our economic enslavement to OPEC even more hurtful.
As we've documented, for just one specific example, in our report of:
Saudi Arabia 4th of July CO2 to Hydrocarbons | Research & Development | News; concerning: "United States Patent 8,288,446 - Catalytic Hydrogenation of CO2 into Syngas Mixture; 2012; Inventors: Agaddin Mamedov, Texas, and Abdulaziz Al-Jodai, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Assignee: Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Riyadh; Abstract: The invention relates to a process of making a syngas mixture containing hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, comprising a step of contacting a gaseous feed mixture containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen with a catalyst, wherein the catalyst substantially consists of chromia/alumina. This process enables hydrogenation of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide with high selectivity, and good catalyst stability over time and under variations in processing conditions. The process can be applied separately, but can also be combined with other processes, for example up-stream with other synthesis processes for making products like aliphatic oxygenates, olefins or aromatics";
our own United States Government officially confirmed that Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation, aka "SABIC", the largest company actually headquartered in Saudi Arabia, had successfully developed technology wherein Carbon Dioxide, as harvested from whatever source, can be directly and efficiently converted into a wide variety of hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals, including fuel alcohol.
As we've also documented, in:
Saudi Arabia Converts Even More CO2 into Hydrocarbon Syngas | Research & Development | News; concerning both the world and US versions of: "US Patent Application 0100190874 - Catalytic Hydrogenation of CO2 into Syngas Mixture; 2010; Inventors: Agaddin Mamedov, et. al.; Texas and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia;
Correspondence (and presumed eventual Assignee): SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation) Americas;
Abstract: The invention relates to a process of making a syngas mixture containing hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, comprising a step of contacting a gaseous feed mixture containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen with a catalyst, which catalyst substantially consists of Mn oxide and an oxide of at least one member selected from the group consisting of Cr, Ni, La, Ce, W, and Pt. This process enables hydrogenation of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide with high selectivity, and good catalyst stability over time and under variations in processing conditions. The process can be applied separately, but can also be integrated with other processes, both up-stream and/or down-stream; like methane reforming or other synthesis processes for making products like alkanes, aldehydes, or alcohols"; and:
Saudi Arabia and Texas Improve CO2 to Syngas Conversion | Research & Development | News; concerning: "United States Patent Application 20130150466 - Mixed Oxide Based Catalyst for the Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Syngas and Method of Preparation and Use; 2013; Inventors: Aghaddin Mamedov, et. al., Texas; Assignee: Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Abstract: The invention relates to a catalyst and process for making syngas mixtures including hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. The process comprises contacting a gaseous feed mixture containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen with the catalyst, where the catalyst comprises Manganese oxide and an auxiliary metal oxide selected from the group consisting of Lanthanum, Calcium, Potassium, Tungsten, Copper, Aluminum and mixtures or combinations thereof. The process enables hydrogenation of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide with high selectivity, and good catalyst stability over time and under variations in processing conditions. The process can be ... integrated with ... synthesis processes for making products like alkanes, aldehydes, or alcohols";
SABIC has continued to develop, broaden and improve their technological base for using and consuming Carbon Dioxide as the key raw material in the synthesis of such products as "alkanes", which would include, for instance, substitute natural gas Methane, and "alcohols", which are specified to include Methanol, which, among many other uses, can be directly and efficiently converted into Gasoline as via, for just one example, ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r), methanol-to-gasoline, process.
And, herein we see, that. just the day before yesterday, on February 24, 2015, our own United States Government officially confirmed the practicability of both the above SABIC processes, and conferred upon SABIC the sole rights of ownership to those processes, wherein Carbon Dioxide can be productively and profitably consumed in the synthesis of fuel alcohols, substitute natural gas and other hydrocarbons.
Comment, and additional links with excerpts, follow very brief excerpts from the initial link in this dispatch to the very recent:
"United States Patent 8,961,829 - Catalytic Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide into Syngas Mixture
Catalytic hyrogenation of carbon dioxide into syngas mixture - Saudi Basic Industries Corporation
Date: February 24, 2015
Inventors: Agaddin Mamedov, et. al., Texas and Saudi Arabia
Assignee: Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Riyadh
Abstract: The invention relates to a process of making a syngas mixture containing hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, comprising a step of contacting a gaseous feed mixture containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen with a catalyst, which catalyst substantially consists of Mn oxide and an oxide of at least one member selected from the group consisting of Cr, Ni, La, Ce, W, and Pt. This process enables hydrogenation of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide with high selectivity, and good catalyst stability over time and under variations in processing conditions. The process can be applied separately, but can also be integrated with other processes, both up-stream and/or down-stream; like methane reforming or other synthesis processes for making products like alkanes, aldehydes, or alcohols"; and:
"United States Patent: 8962702 - Mixed Oxide Based Catalyst for the Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Syngas and Method of Preparation and Use
Date: February 24, 2015
Inventors: Aghaddin Mamedov, et. al., Texas
Assignee: Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Abstract: The invention relates to a catalyst and process for making syngas mixtures including hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. The process comprises contacting a gaseous feed mixture containing carbon dioxide and hydrogen with the catalyst, where the catalyst comprises Mn oxide and an auxiliary metal oxide selected from the group consisting of La, Ca, K, W, Cu, Al and mixtures or combinations thereof. The process enables hydrogenation of carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide with high selectivity, and good catalyst stability over time and under variations in processing conditions. The process can be applied separately, but can also be integrated with other processes, both up-stream and/or down-stream including methane reforming or other synthesis processes for making products like alkanes, aldehydes, or alcohols.
Background and Field: Embodiments of the present invention relate to catalyst compositions, to processes for making the catalyst compositions of this invention, to catalytic processes for producing a synthesis gas (syngas) mixture under isothermal conditions from carbon dioxide and hydrogen using a catalyst of this invention and to processes for using the syngas mixtures to produce various chemical products.
More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to catalyst compositions, to processes for making the catalyst compositions of this invention, to catalytic processes for producing a syngas mixture under isotherm'al conditions from carbon dioxide and hydrogen, where the syngas mixture includes hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and the processes include contacting a gaseous feed mixture including carbon dioxide and hydrogen with a metal oxide catalyst to produce the syngas mixture. Embodiments of the invention also relate to processes for making the catalyst compositions and processes for utilizing a syngas mixture in the production of various chemical products.
Summary: The invention further relates to the use of the syngas mixture obtained with the processes according to the invention as feed material for a process of making a chemical product; such processes include methanol production, olefin synthesis (e.g. via Fischer-Tropsch catalysis), aromatics production, oxosynthesis, carbonylation of methanol, carbonylation of olefins, or the reduction of iron oxide in steel production".
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There is, of course, much more to the patent disclosures than our brief excerpts indicate. And, both expositions warrant more exposition and explanation of the potentials and implications than we can provide here. For fuller discussion, refer to our prior reports of the patent applications that led to these documents.
In the full disclosures, you'll note that frequent reference is also made to "reforming" reactions, wherein more Carbon Dioxide is reacted with Methane, with both being transformed into more hydrocarbon syngas through those reforming reactions.
Though not clearly defined or stated, Methane is among the "alkanes" synthesized from Carbon Dioxide by the technical processes disclosed herein by SABIC. And, in essence, as a lower value product, it can simply be extracted from the final product streams and be directed back into the syngas preparation stages for reaction with Carbon Dioxide into more synthesis gas.
The hydrogenation reaction of CO2 with Hydrogen will, as well, form a certain amount of Methane along with the basic Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen synthesis gas; and, that Methane, too, can be recycled within the syngas-forming reactions. The SABIC catalysts and reaction conditions are designed and selected so as to minimize, as much as possible, the formation of Methane in reactions between Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen, since it is the hydrocarbon synthesis gas, and the products that can be made from the syngas, which are the desired end products.
And, there are even more Saudi Arabian CO2 utilization developments in the, to use perhaps an unfortunate choice of words, pipeline; some of which we've documented previously and others we'll be reporting on in the near future. But, for some indication of what our future might look like, consider, that, as in:
: Saudi Arabia and CO2: The Rich Get Richer | Research & Development | News; concerning: "'SABIC Unit Plans World’s Largest CO2 Purification Plant'; United Jubail Petrochemical Company, an affiliate of Saudi’s SABIC, has awarded a construction contract for the plant to Germany’s Linde Group. By Aarti Nagraj, August 21, 2013; An affiliate of Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) announced that it has awarded a construction contract to build the world’s largest carbon dioxide (CO2) purification and liquefaction plant in the Kingdom. United Jubail Petrochemical Company (United), a manufacturing unit of SABIC, has given the engineering, procurement and construction contract for the project to Germany’s The Linde Group, it said in a statement. ... The plant will be designed to compress and purify about 1,500 tons per day of raw carbon dioxide coming from ethylene glycol plants. The purified gaseous CO2 will then be supplied through pipes to three SABIC-affiliated companies for enhanced methanol and urea production, the statement said. Methanol is a basic commodity for the chemical industry, and urea is used for fertilizer production";
SABIC, right now, is making ready to reduce their Carbon Dioxide conversion technologies to commercial, industrial practice. As we've documented in many previous reports, the United States Government itself has developed and owns many CO2-utilization technologies like those disclosed herein by Saudi Arabia.
Too bad that we're not, though, it seems, as well-informed and as industrious as the Saudi Arabians.