WV Coal Member Meeting 2024 1240x200 1 1

USDOE CO2 + H2O = Hydrocarbon Syngas

 
Herein is more information, from the USDOE's Idaho National Laboratory, concerning "Syntrolysis"; wherein Carbon Dioxide and Water are "co-electrolyzed" to generate a synthesis gas, composed of Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide, well-suited suited for catalytic condensation via, for instance, the Fischer-Tropsch process, into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.
 
Before presenting our excerpts from the enclosed link and attached file, we want to explain that, if any of our readers have been interested enough to follow up with research of their own, they would likely have found the USDOE's Syntrolysis technology publicly associated most often with the conversion of biomass into liquid hydrocarbons, as a way to utilize the CO2 and the Steam that is produced by the gasification of biomass.
 
Don't be misdirected or misled.

South Africa & China Coal Liquefaction Partnership

 
We have, in a number of previous reports, documented that South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited, SASOL, has, for many decades, been making a variety of liquid hydrocarbon fuels, in multiple facilities, out of Coal.
 
We have also reported that China, with the help of West Virginia University and the University of North Dakota, among others, has established a Coal liquefaction industrial base which it, at least at one time, planned, again as we documented, to expand to include eighty eight Coal conversion factories.
 
Herein, we see that China and South Africa are combining their Coal liquefaction talents in order to build and expand the industry.
 
One interesting forward note: We long ago documented that volatile Coke oven gasses, produced during the conversion of raw Coal into Coke for steel making, and most usually vented or flared, could be recovered and catalytically condensed into liquid hydrocarbons.
 
That is exactly what the first China-SASOL joint project will entail: Producing liquid hydrocarbon fuels from Coke oven off-gasses generated by their steel industry.  

USDOE Coal & Biomass to Liquid Fuel

  
Our United States Department of Energy's Savannah River, South Carolina, National Laboratory is another of their facilities which has been at work developing Coal liquefaction technologies that can, as well, include biomass in the feed; a feature which adds elements of both sustainability and Carbon recycling to a liquid hydrocarbon fuels synthesis process necessarily based, because of the economies of scale, on Coal.
 
One notable facet of Savannah River's technology is that, in addition to generating liquid hydrocarbon fuels from Coal and Carbon-recycling biomass, their process also generates a relatively pure stream of effluent Carbon Dioxide as off-gas by-product.

Coal & CO2 to Hydrocarbon Syngas

 
In further confirmation of earlier reports we've made, German scientists, as herein affirmed by our United States Government, have demonstrated that hot Coal can be reacted with both reclaimed Carbon Dioxide and Steam, and made thereby to generate a mixture of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen; a synthesis gas that can then be catalytically condensed, via, for instance, the Fischer-Tropsch technology, into liquid hydrocarbons. 
 
Note, too, that, among many other carbonaceous/hydrocarbon compounds, Methane, as can be synthesized, via the Sabatier process, from Carbon Dioxide, or, via Steam-gasification, from Coal, can also be added to the mix of raw materials.
 
And, apparently, and perhaps most importantly, both the uncondensed hydrocarbon off-gases and, even, some of the lower-value liquids produced from a Fischer-Tropsch reactor, including Methanol, can be "dumped" into the gasifier along with Coal and the other compounds, to be reacted together and generate even more hydrocarbon synthesis gas.

More USDOE CO2 "Syntrolysis"

 
"Syntrolysis ... a process developed by the Idaho National Laboratory that (consumes) carbon dioxide while creating synthesis gas ... a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide used to produce synthetic fuels."
 
The "Syntrolysis" process is one specific example of technology that, as we have documented to be under development by, and with some US Patents already issued to, corporate contractors, such as United Technologies and Hamilton Standard, for our United States Department of Defense, wherein Carbon Dioxide and Water are co-electrolyzed into their atomic constituents; with the Carbon and the Hydrogen then catalytically recombined into an, apparently, adjustable and selectable variety of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons.