Allied Chemical Liquefies Coal

United States Patent: 4235699
 
It's beginning to seem as if, at one time, anyone who was anyone in the community of United States Chemical and Petroleum companies knew how to convert Coal into liquids suitable for refining into fuels and organic chemicals of commercial utility.
 
Herein, in their United States Patent on Coal liquefaction technology, the old Allied Chemical Company, which became a part of Honeywell in 1999, if you recall our previous dispatches about Honeywell's Coal conversion achievements in concert with their UOP - United Oil Products - Division, presents an interesting, even intriguing, take on Coal conversion processes.
 
As you will see, they utilize products easily derived from, especially high Sulfur, Coal as agents of dissolution in their liquefaction technique.
 

California Files CO2 Recycling Patents

CONVERSION OF CARBON DIOXIDE TO METHANOL AND/OR DIMETHYL ETHER USING BI-REFORMING OF METHANE OR NATURAL GAS - Patent application
 
In a previous dispatch, we made reference to a recent United States Patent application for recycling Carbon Dioxide, into Methanol and Dimethyl Ether, made by two University of Southern California scientists, Nobel Winner George Olah and, his colleague, Surya Prakash.
 
A review of our records revealed that we had, in fact, not yet transmitted information concerning that patent application, and we herein attempt correction of the oversight.
 

Gulf Patents CoalTL Improvements

United States Patent: 4157291
 
In this dispatch we submit yet another decades-old United States Patent, held by yet another then-major oil company, that confirms the reality of Coal liquefaction technology, not by describing the ways in which Coal can be transformed into liquid fuel, but, as with other, similar, oil industry patents we've recently brought to your attention, such as Esso/Exxon's US Patent 35114394, by establishing a technique to recycle or renew the catalysts employed for the liquefaction of Coal.

ARCO Upgrades Coal Liquids

http://www.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint%20archive/Files/25_3_SAN%20FRANCISCO_08-80_0198.pdf


As in a few of our previous dispatches, we herein document the reality of Coal-to-Liquid Fuel technology, not by reporting how Coal liquids are made, but by demonstrating that some considerable effort has been put into the development of technology to further refine Coal liquids, once they are synthesized.
 

CO2 Generates Electricity

United States Patent: 5213908
 
We earlier documented that NASA owns technology which enables, and would enable, our US astronauts to make both Oxygen, as is practiced now aboard the International Space Station, and rocket propellant, as they intend to do on Mars, from Carbon Dioxide.
 
Herein, we report that the US Government also owns the rights to a technology that would enable us to use Carbon Dioxide to generate electricity.
 
And, as we point out in comments following, even though this technology was, no doubt, developed for our Space Program, it does have more mundane terrestrial applications.