WV Coal Member Meeting 2024 1240x200 1 1

Texaco Improves Coal Hydrogasification

  
We have extensively documented the Coal gasification conversion expertise of the former Texaco, now a component of Chevron.
 
Since, in a very recent report, we documented that the United States Environmental Protection Agency had utilized a Texaco Coal Gasification facility to, in the process of gasifying Pittsburgh Seam Coal, clean up and convert into hydrocarbon synthesis gas the toxic wastes left by a California petroleum refinery, we thought it timely to submit this report of their advanced technology for, as they put it, improving "the economy and efficiency of ... producing large volumes of synthesis gas comprising principally hydrogen and carbon monoxide", from a variety of organic substances.

Shell Oil Coal + Steam = Hydrocarbons

 

This Shell Oil technology is mostly about the processing of synthesis gas, once it is produced from Coal, in order to generate more versatile, and more valuable, hydrocarbons.
 
We submit it only to emphasize, yet again, that hydrogenated synthesis gas suitable for efficient catalytic conversion into more useful hydrocarbons can be readily produced via the Steam gasification of Coal.
 
That fact is highlighted in the following passage excerpted from the main body of the Disclosure, where it is included almost as an isolated aside:
 
"In the process according to the invention the starting material is an H2/CO mixture with an H2/CO molar ratio of less than 1.0. Such H2/CO mixtures can very suitably be prepared by steam gasification of a carbon containing material. Examples of such materials are brown coal, anthracite ... ."

EPA Promotes Coal Conversion to Clean the Environment

 
As we earlier reported, and as now recorded in the West Virginia Coal Association's R&D site, the United States Environmental Protection Agency affirmed the reality of technologies for converting Coal into gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons, by promulgating technical environmental standards for Coal conversion facilities.
 
Herein, we see that the much-vilified EPA actually promotes the conversion of Coal into hydrocarbons, since  such hydrocarbon synthesis operations, made technically and economically feasible by Coal, would enable the productive co-processing, the recycling, into hydrocarbon fuels, of  wastes contaminated by toxic organic chemicals. 

Standard Oil 1950 Syngas Processing

 
By 1950, more than half a century ago, our official, US Government-certified knowledge concerning the technology for converting Coal into the liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons traditionally obtained from petroleum was so advanced that, as we have in earlier posts documented, considerable effort was applied to, and achievements made, in recovering and refining Coal-derived hydrocarbons from a Coal conversion process stream.
 
The US Patent we enclose herein is another example of that technology, wherein synthesis gas, derived either from Coal or Methane, is further processed to enhance recovery and production of valuable products.

Texaco CO2-Free Coal Hydroconversion

 
One of our earlier reports, documenting the former Texaco's, since absorbed into Chevron, development of technologies whereby Coal can be gasified with Steam, in order to generate an hydrogenated synthesis gas well-suited for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbons, was posted on the web July 15 of this year by the West Virginia Coal Association; and, it detailed "US Patent 2,838,388 - Gasifying Carbonaceous  Fuels".
 
That US Patent was awarded and assigned to Texaco in June, 1958.
 
Herein, we see that Texaco continued their Coal hydro-gasification development work, and were, less than one year later, awarded another US Patent for an improved process of generating an hydrogenated synthesis gas, specified by Texaco to be well-suited for catalytic condensation into liquid fuels, from reactions between Steam and hot Coal.