United States Patent: 6248795

In a previous dispatch, dated August 8, 2010, and entitled "Korea CO2 to Methanol to Gasoline", we made report of: United States Patent: 6376562; Hydrocarbon Synthesis via Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide; Date: April, 2002; Inventor: Son-Ki Ihm, et. al.; Assignee: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

We refer you to that report for more details concerning the specific Carbon Dioxide recycling technology disclosed. But, we see herein that Korea's US Patent 6376562 was actually an advancement on prior Korean art for recycling Carbon Dioxide, through which CO2 is converted into Methanol and Dimethyl Ether.

United States Patent: 5254596

Since, via separate dispatch today, we are making report of United States Patent: 6248795 - a process for making "Dimethyl Ether and Methanol from Carbon Dioxide"; which was issued in 2001 and assigned to the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, for a "process of preparing from carbon dioxide a mixture of dimethyl ether and methanol",  we wanted to document that, aside from the critical importance of such Carbon Dioxide recycling technology, we, in the United States, have known how to manufacture those same valuable materials out of Coal for even longer.

Note that we have previously documented, numerous times, the fact that Eastman Chemical is, and has been for some time, operating a factory in Kingsport, Tennessee, where they convert Coal into Methanol.

We advise that we are including some additional links in this dispatch, following our initial exposition, concerning Eastman's Coal conversion expertise.

United States Patent: 4756806

We first explain that the named assignee of the US patent we report herein, the Gas Research Institute, subsequent to issuance of the patent, merged, in the year 2000, with the Institute of Gas Technology, created originally in 1941 at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the new entity, and subsequently the owner of the patent rights, is the Gas Technology Institute, "GTI", which is located in Des Plaines, Illinois, and which bills itself as a non-profit research and development organization in the business of developing new energy technologies, with a particular focus on the natural gas industry.

Presuming you to have followed our posts over the past few years, we remind you that we have previously cited the GTI, and it's precedent organizations, a few times in the course of our reportage on Coal conversion and related technologies.

United States Patent: 4251346

We've documented, to the point of tedium, we're certain, the fact that South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited, SASOL, has, in Africa, been making liquid transportation fuels - direct replacements for all those fuels traditionally derived from petroleum - in multiple facilities, and for many years, out of Coal.

They we're doing so long before the US Patent we reveal herein was issued; but, we see that, very nearly three decades ago, our United States Government agreed that SASOL had refined their Coal conversion technology to the point where, essentially, 100% of the Carbon content in the Coal is converted into liquid hydrocarbons.

Unlike some related Coal liquefaction technologies, very little of the Carbon is "lost" to the co-production of Methane; or, to the formation of a solid residue which would require further treatment to effect complete conversion.

The technology is a "direct" Coal conversion process, unlike the Fischer-Tropsch indirect Coal conversion technology that was, with later WWII innovations, we believe, used by SASOL to first establish their Coal conversion industry in South Africa.