Last month, as available via: Grumman Aerospace Recycles CO2 | Research & Development | News; we made report of "US Patent 4,282,187 - Hydrocarbons from Air, Water and Low Cost Electrical Power", which was awarded and assigned to Grumman all the way back in 1981.
The disclosed technology is one which enables us, as Grumman puts it, to manufacture "synthetic hydrocarbons such as gasoline and/or kerosene from the synthesis of carbon dioxide and hydrogen".
God bless the rocket scientists.
As has been disclosed multiple times in our reports, processes designed for the indirect conversion of Coal into more versatile hydrocarbons, such as the seemingly best-known Fischer-Tropsch technology, necessitate first converting Coal into a synthesis gas, or "syngas", through a process of partial oxidation; with or without the addition of Steam to provide supplemental Hydrogen.
Although the partial oxidation is controlled to minimize it, some Carbon Dioxide is inevitably co-produced, along with the desired Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen, through the use of, essentially, Coal combustion to drive the generation of that syngas.
We earlier made report, as available via: Exxon Coal to Methanol | Research & Development | News; of one process, embodied in "United States Patent 4,348,487 - Production of Methanol via Catalytic Coal Gasification; September, 1982; Assignee: Exxon Research and Engineering Company" wherein Coal can be productively converted into the versatile liquid fuel, Methanol.
Aside from the fact that Eastman Chemical, as we have many times documented, has been doing just that on a commercial scale in Kingsport, Tennessee, for quite some time, herein, from Germany, is further exposition of the ways in which Coal can be transformed into an alcohol that can, via, for one example, ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) technology, be further converted into Gasoline; or, be used as the basic raw material in the manufacture of a variety of commercially-important plastics.
A few months ago, we made report, now available on the West Virginia Coal Association's web site, via the link: US Navy Seeks CO2 Recycling Patent; of "US Patent Application 2008/0051478A1 - Synthesis of Hydrocarbons via Catalytic Reduction of CO2".
The US Government, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, will be assigned the patent rights to that technology for converting Carbon Dioxide into liquid hydrocarbon fuels, if and when the patent is issued.
Herein, via the initial link in this dispatch, we see that the US Navy's Carbon Dioxide recycling technology, as disclosed in that application, is only an advancement on similar and related technology that had already been established, by one of that application's named inventors.
In multiple reports, we've thoroughly documented that both Coal and Carbon Dioxide can be converted into Methanol.
Some recent examples of such include: Exxon Coal to Methanol | Research & Development | News; "US Patent 4,348,487 - Production of Methanol via Catalytic Coal Gasification; 1982; Assignee: Exxon Research and Engineering Company, NJ"; and, ConocoPhillips CO2 to Methanol | Research & Development | News; "US Patent Application 20030060355 - Converting CO2 to Oxygenates; 2003; Assignee (presumed): ConocoPhillips".