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NASA Rocket Fuel from CO2

In this dispatch, we're just confirming some of our earlier reports, wherein we revealed that NASA intends to make it's own rocket fuel on the planet Mars, by utilizing only the Carbon Dioxide in the Martian atmosphere and the Water present in the ice on the Martian surface, through employment of the Nobel Prize-winning, one century-old Sabatier process.  .
 
That is confirmed by this brief excerpt from the enclosed link: 
 
"Although Mars is not rich in methane, methane can be manufactured there via the Sabatier process: Mix some carbon dioxide (CO2) with hydrogen (H), then heat the mixture to produce CH4 and H20 -- methane and water. The Martian atmosphere is an abundant source of carbon dioxide, and the relatively small amount of hydrogen required for the process may be ... gathered from Martian ice."
 
Should you check out the full article by accessing the link, you will be treated to the photograph of a truly impressive spray of energetic flame spewing from the business end of a rocket motor.
 
Not stated specifically, but most definitely implied, is that all of that impressive light and heat energy could have started life as nothing but dreary old Carbon Dioxide.

US Guv-Owned Coal + Steam = Hydrocarbons

 

We earlier documented the development, by the USDOE, and/or it's precedent agencies, of Coal gasification technology, wherein Coal could be reacted with Steam, which provides the needed Hydrogen to convert Carbon into hydrocarbons, in our one post, for instance, among others, of July 26: "USDOE Hydrogasifies Coal, Recycles Carbon".
 
The US Patent, Number 3988123, we detailed in that report was issued in October of 1976; and, we see herein, via the enclosed document, that our US Government had been at work on such Coal hydrogenation technology for even longer.
 
And, we are compelled to assert, they have been at such work for much, much longer.

Eastman Recycles CO2 to Hydrocarbon Syngas



We have earlier, in multiple reports, documented for you the commercial operation of a Coal conversion and hydrogenation facility in Kingsport, TN, by the Eastman Chemicals division of Eastman Kodak; wherein they are converting Coal into hydrocarbons, including and especially the quite-valuable Methanol, through the initial production of synthesis gas.
 
Herein, via the enclosed accurately-, but less than completely-, labeled United States Patent, we see that Eastman knows how to do exactly the same thing with Carbon Dioxide.
 
To be precise, Eastman explains, in their full Disclosure, how to create a hydrocarbon synthesis gas, which can be then be catalytically condensed, one supposes, into Methanol, out of Carbon Dioxide, by reacting that gas with, as in a way similar to, but somewhat different from, Penn State University's "tri-reforming" technology, Methane.

Exxon 1982 Hydrogenated Syngas from Carbon & Steam

 
We have, in the course of our reportage concerning Coal conversion and Carbon Dioxide recycling technologies, made note of several facts about the known processes for turning those two raw materials into valuable hydrocarbons.
 
One fact is that some primary processes for transforming either or both of them into other products results in the formation, the deposition on catalyst surfaces, of carbon, or carbonaceous, residues.
 
The same is true, by the way, of long-practiced techniques for the refining of crude petroleum, and the oil industry has developed efficient technologies for the further conversion of "resids" or petroleum refinery "coke" - essentially carbon deposits - into liquid hydrocarbons.

US 1941 CO2 + CH4 = Liquid Fuel

 
We remind you of our recent post to the West Virginia Coal Association, concerning: "Development of an Improved Sabatier Reactor; ASME Conference on Environmental Systems", presented by employees of the Hamilton Standard Division of United Technologies Corporation.
 
In that paper, the judgement of the 1912 Nobel Committee, in the award of their Prize in Chemistry to Paul Sabatier, was directly validated; as the US Government contractors who authored that paper confirmed that "carbon dioxide and hydrogen" could be reacted "in the presence of a catalyst ... to form water, methane and heat".
 
In other previous reports, we have documented how it has been known, since the late 1800's, that Methane could as well be synthesized, as one of several products, via the Steam gasification of Coal.