Conoco Coal to Methanol

United States Patent: 4218389

 

In our recent report to the West Virginia Coal Association, available as ConocoPhillips CO2 to Methanol | Research & Development | News, we documented "United States Patent Application 20030060355", a process for "Converting Carbon Dioxide to Oxygenates" wherein ConocoPhillps disclosed their catalyst and technology for, as they put it, "converting carbon dioxide to methanol".

Keeping in mind that Methanol is an extraordinarily versatile substance which can serve as the raw material for the further, efficient synthesis of various plastics and Gasoline, we wanted, via the United States Patent we disclose herein, to confirm that Conoco also knows, and have known for a shade more than three decades, how to make such valuable Methanol from Coal.

And, we alert you that, in confirmation of many other similar technologies we have cited for you, the hydrogenation of Coal, to form Methanol, is accomplished via seemingly-obvious reaction with Steam.

Taiwan CO2 to Methanol

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m124m4j374u33731/fulltext.pdf

 

In some of our recent reports, we've shown that technologies for converting Carbon Dioxide into the valuable plastics manufacturing raw material and, as in ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) technology, Gasoline precursor, Methanol, are actually fairly well-known among, and being further developed by, some corporate components of the international petroleum industry - most of them headquartered in the United States, where USDOE National Laboratories and USDOD contractors, all as we have documented, have been contributing to the, what should be public, Carbon Dioxide recycling knowledge base.

Herein, we see that such knowledge, of processes which would enable the conversion of Carbon Dioxide into the versatile and valuable Methanol, has been established in other nations of the world, as well; some of them nations we have come to view, given especially the "merger" of the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China, as potent competitors.

EPA & DOE Recycle More CO2

United States Patent: 5767165

 

We submit herein yet another Carbon Dioxide recycling process developed, jointly it seems, by USDOE scientists at the Brookhaven, NY, National Laboratory; and, by EPA scientists at their National Risk Management and Environmental Protection Research Laboratory, in North Carolina.

The two named inventors' specific affiliations aren't actually specified. Nor, is the Patent openly assigned to the good old USA. But, web-based reference sources quickly confirm their identities.

And we have, in any case, cited Brookhaven's Meyer Steinberg for you previously.

Exxon Coal to Methanol

United States Patent: 4348487


We consistently, even tediously, make reference in our reports to the ExxonMobil "MTG"(r) process, wherein Methanol is converted into Gasoline; and, we consistently note that ExxonMobil posits that the Methanol is to be made from Coal, just as Eastman Chemical, as we've several times documented for you, is now producing Methanol, from Coal, at a plant in Kingsport, Tennessee.

Six months ago, as available via: Exxon Methanol & Methane from Coal | Research & Development | News , we made report to the West Virginia Coal Association of, then just, Exxon's 1976 US Patent 3,993,457, for the "Concurrent Production of Methanol and Synthetic Natural Gas", wherein they produced Methanol by, as a first step in the process, "gasifying a carbonaceous feed material", such as Coal, "with steam"; and, wherein they also, concurrently, produced Methane as a valuable by-product.

USDOE Hydrocracks Coal with Steam and Carbon Monoxide

United States Patent: 4225414


Throughout the Disclosure of this United States Department of Energy technology for hydrogenating, "hydrocracking", Coal, in order to synthesize more versatile hydrocarbon fuels and chemical manufacturing raw materials, you will see continuous reference to the need for "hydrogen", or, "hydrogen-containing gas".

Don't be misled. Any needed Hydrogen can be produced as an integral function of the overall process; a fact revealed by one passage buried deep with the full document, and which we present now, by way of introductory foreword, as follows:

"The hydrogen-containing gas can be hydrogen, hydrogen mixed with a diluent gas, synthesis gas including hydrogen and carbon monoxide or a gas having components which will react to produce hydrogen such as a mixture of carbon monoxide and steam."

Steam we can make: Just fire up some Coal and boil some Water with it.