WV Coal Member Meeting 2024 1240x200 1 1

Mobil Liquefies Coal with CO & H2O

 
Herein is yet another pre-ExxonMobil technology for converting Coal into liquid hydrocarbon fuels, from the old Mobil Oil Corporation.
 
We find it to be of great interest since it describes an advance on technology we have earlier documented, wherein the Hydrogen needed to hydrogenate Coal, in order to synthesize gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons, could be generated by Water-Carbon reactions, often in earlier work accomplished through the relatively simple expedient of passing Steam over hot Coal.
 
This Mobil process is much more sophisticated. In it, the needed Hydrogen is produced by reacting Water with Coal in the presence of Carbon Monoxide, which we can, most certainly, make from Coal.
 
The complete reaction is facilitated, apparently made possible, through the use of a reasonably common mineral.

Texaco 1950 Coal + Steam = Hydrocarbon Syngas

 
Herein, we see that Texaco, before some of us geezers were even born, and well before their assimilation by Chevron, as part of their ongoing Coal conversion development effort, which we have begun and which we will continue to document, themselves hit upon what is becoming an obvious fact for us, what has plainly been an obvious fact for the petroleum industry for many decades:
 
Coal can be cleanly and efficiently hydrogenated, to synthesize more versatile hydrocarbons, through interactions with Steam.

Standard Oil 1954 CO2 + CH4 + H2O = Syngas

 
From more than half a century ago, as follow up on their earlier work which we have already documented, we see that Standard Oil improved even further, as confirmed by our own United States Government, via it's Patent Office, the technologies they already had in hand whereby Carbon Dioxide can be reacted with Methane to generate a synthesis gas, or "syngas", from which liquid fuels can, through long-known catalytic reactions, be manufactured.
 
As we must reiterate: Standard Oil would have known, as should have the Federal Government, by the time this patent was issued, in 1954, that Methane, as confirmed by the Nobel Committee in 1912, could itself be synthesized, via the Sabatier process, from Carbon Dioxide.

EPA Converts Methane to Diesel Fuel

  
We earlier sent you, trusting that the following links transmit with functionality intact, reports of  Process for upgrading methane to higher hydrocarbons - US Patent 5023392 Description and Methane conversion process, wherein it was seen that both ARCO and Mobil, as confirmed by our own US Government, had, separately, developed practical technologies wherein Methane can be converted into Gasoline.
 
All our other documentation of the fact that Methane can be manufactured, via the 1912 Sabatier process now being further refined by NASA, from Carbon Dioxide; or, via one of a seemingly endless variety of techniques for the Steam-gasification of Coal; aside, we submit herein, again from the much-vilified USEPA - who, if you recall earlier of our reports, has validated the truth that Coal can be converted into liquid hydrocarbon fuels by promulgating environmental standards for Coal liquefaction plants - clear statement that Methane, once produced from CO2 or Coal, can be converted into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.

Netherlands 1934 CoalTL US Patent

 
 
We had thought that the Axis, pre-WWII, Coal conversion technology United States patents we discovered and reported to you were pretty nifty items, and, then, we discovered this gem.
 
In 1934, the Netherlands, home of Royal Dutch Shell, who, though they have, aside from some peat bogs, no domestic Coal reserves of their own, did possess, in the far-flung reaches of their empire, a lot of Coal.
 
And, they thought enough of it to develop a process wherein they, too, like Germany, could convert it into liquid hydrocarbon fuels.