Methane Improves Coal Liquefaction

http://www.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint%20archive/Files/47_1_Orlando_03-02_0129.pdf
 
We have previously cited, as in "Methane conversion to higher hydrocarbons in the presence of carbon dioxide using dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD) plasmas; Plasma Chemistry & Plasma Processing, 2001",
and will further cite, the work of Swiss scientist Baldur Eliasson and his Chinese co-workers in the field of Carbon conversion technologies.
 
Herein, Eliasson, et. al., reveal, in confirmation of previous reports we've submitted, that Methane, as can be synthesized from Carbon Dioxide, via Sabatier-type reactions, or from Coal, via hydrogasification, can serve to improve the production and efficiency of some indirect Coal-to-liquid conversion processes. 
 
Our understanding, from other references, is that the word "plasma", as it is used herein and as applied in these technologies, refers to a, relatively, "low-temperature" gas chemistry phenomenon, and does not imply the high-temperature, high-energy processing environments which might normally be associated with plasma phenomena. 
 

Methane to Liquid Fuel; German 1933 US Patent

Patent US1905520


We have reported that, in 1912, Paul Sabatier was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for demonstrating that Carbon Dioxide could be recycled, converted, into the hydrocarbon gas, Methane.
 
We have also documented that, in 1931, Friedrich Bergius and Carl Bosch were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for independently and concurrently developing what were referred to, with conveyed anonymity, as "Chemical High Pressure Methods", and, which were, in fact, techniques for the conversion of Coal into hydrocarbons using indirect gasification techniques, wherein Methane and gaseous Carbon oxides are generated from Coal. 
 

USDOE Converts Coal to Methane

Energy Citations Database (ECD) - - Document #5410456
 
Herein is even further documentation that, not only does our US Government know that Coal can be converted, on a practical basis, into Methane, which has quite valuable uses that we'll again repeat following the excerpt, but, it has known about, and was refining, such valuable technology at least until the late 1980's - when most of the other Federally-sponsored Coal research and development programs, as we've documented, seem to have "winked out", as well.

US EPA Says Convert Methane to Liquid Fuel

http://www.epa.gov/cmop/docs/015red.pdf
 
Herein, we document that even our own, United States Environmental Protection Agency knows that Methane can be converted into Liquid Fuel, and, by extension, other useful hydrocarbons.
 
In the excerpt, following, you will discover that they are proposing only to collect the Methane that might inadvertently be emitted from the actual processes of coal mining.
 
However, left unstated are the plain, now incontrovertible, facts, that Methane can be synthesized via both the Sabatier-type recycling of Carbon Dioxide, and the hydrogasification of Coal.

USDOE Reports Arizona Coal Hydrogasification

http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/factsheets/project/Proj410.pdf
 
As follow up on our two most recent dispatches concerning the US Government's, via the DOE and the EPA, development of a knowledge base and technologies for the conversion Coal, via Methane, into clean burning liquid fuels, we submit the enclosed and attached from the USDOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory.
 
We have earlier reported on this Arizona project, citing other sources, with respect to their use of algae to reclaim and recycle any Carbon Dioxide not returned to the process stream.
 
It confirms that Methane, which can be used to recycle Carbon Dioxide, via Tri-reforming technology, into liquid hydrocarbons; or, as we've documented, to improve the processes of Coal liquefaction, can, itself, be synthesized from Coal via hydrogasification.
 
In this study, it appears the researchers used elemental hydrogen, which can be obtained through the electrolysis of water, for the hydrogasification process. However, other research we've cited previously and will cite further, suggests that both steam and biological matter can be employed as hydrogen donors in such coal hydrogasification.