NASA & Sabatier CO2 Reduction for Advanced Missions

 
We have introduced you to Nobel Prize-winner Paul Sabatier and his technology for recycling Carbon Dioxide into the building blocks of hydrocarbon fuels and water. And, we have reported that his CO2 recycling technology is being used on the International Space Station to sustain Earth's astronauts.
 
Herein is more information on how Carbon Dioxide - arising from our use of coal for power generation, metal refining, and the synthesis of needed liquid fuels and chemicals - can help sustain all of us on our "advanced", extended mission aboard Space Ship Earth.
 
As follows: 

"A Trade Study on Sabatier Co2 Reduction Subsystem for Advanced Missions

Document Number: 2001-01-2293

Date Published: July 2001

Author(s):
Frank F. Jeng - Lockheed Martin Space Opeations

Chin H. Lin - NASA Johnson Space Center

Abstract:
An analysis on O2 usage, water contents in food, CO2 and H2 availability, water generation capability of CO2 reduction subsystems, water balance, etc., was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of integrating a CO2 reduction subsystem into an air revitalization system.

The effects of CO2 reduction subsystem operating parameters on water recovery efficiencies and water generation capabilities were analyzed. Water mass balances for advanced missions were conducted for advanced missions. Equivalent system mass method was used to calculate payoff time for integrating the CO2 reduction subsystem into an air revitalization system. Decision criteria based on payoff time for integrating a CRS for advanced missions were developed."

Please note that the term "reduction", as used herein, has a dual meaning. The amount of Carbon Dioxide is physically reduced by, in the technical sense, chemically "reducing" it, i.e., "de-oxidizing" it, into it's basic components, Carbon and Oxygen. 

And, with some extrapolation, we infer that the technology exists to, by recycling a much-demonized coal use by-product, effect the "revitalization" of our planetary "air". 

NASA Recycles CO2

 
You'll recall that our dispatch about our CO2 "problem" being solved by a Nobel prize-winning technique presented, way back in 1912, by scientist Paul Sabatier.
 
So effective is Sabatier's technology, it is what NASA uses aboard the International Space Station to recycle the Carbon Dioxide emitted by human astronauts.
 
Sabatier demonstrated that the Carbon produced by CO2 reduction could be recycled "with the greatest ease", in his terms, into the useful fuel and organic chemical building block: methane.
 
NASA focuses on the other useful product which can be obtained by Sabatier CO2 recycling: water.
 
An excerpt: 

"METHODS OF WATER PRODUCTION: Aboard the Shuttle Orbiter water is generated using a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell which produces both electricity and very pure water. Water can also be produced by reduction of CO2 by hydrogen over a suitable catalyst. The Sabatier and Bosch processes are two Carbon Dioxide Reduction Systems which have been studied extensively. The Sabatier method has been selected for ISSA."

Now, wasn't it another NASA fellow, name of Hansen, we believe, who started all this CO2 ruckus in the first place? Since they're the ones who first told us "we might have a problem" aboard Space Station Earth, because of CO2, shouldn't they be the ones to tell us that problem has now been solved?
 
Somebody should tell us before this Cap&Trade nonsense goes any further and begins to damage our vital coal industries:
 
Carbon Dioxide is a valuable by-product of our coal use. We can make fuel and water out of it.

CO2 Solution Wins Nobel Prize - in 1912


 
We excerpt below a small portion of Paul Sabatier's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he was awarded in 1912.
 
His accomplishment?
 
He demonstrated that Carbon Dioxide can, "with the greatest ease", be converted, recycled, into methane.
 
More comments, and other citations, follow this excerpt:

"Paul Sabatier

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1912

Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1912 

The Method of Direct Hydrogenation by Catalysis

During the period 1901 to 1905, together with Senderens, I showed that nickel is very suitable for the direct hydrogenation of nitriles into amines and, no less important, of aldehydes and acetones into corresponding alcohols. Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide are both changed immediately into methane, which can therefore be synthesized with the greatest ease."
 
"With the greatest ease". Why then, are we so stressed out about CO2? Especially when we know, according to the following, presented without links, that we can perform the:
 
"Selective oxidation of methane to methanol on a FeZSM-5 surface " 

V. I. Sobolev, K. A. Dubkov, O. V. Panna and G. I. Panov

Boreskov Institute of Catalysis, Novosibirsk 630090, Russia

Abstract
Methane is selectively oxidized to methanol ... on FeZSM-5 zeolite ...".
 
And, a kicker, in case you've forgotten some of our earlier reports: "ZSM-5" zeolite catalyst is at the heart of, it is the key to, Exxon-Mobil's MTG (r) process for converting Methanol To Gasoliine.
 
Mike, we have, for a century now, been bamboozled by Big Oil, accompanied of late in their mechanizations by their unwitting, but well-meaning, camp followers, the environmentalists.  
 
We have known for almost a hundred years that we can convert our abundant coal into needed liquid fuels. We have known for just as long, as was confirmed by the award of, perhaps, the world's most prestigious acknowledgement of intellectual achievement, the Nobel Prize, that combustion could be reversed, and reversed in practical fashion.
 
Coal does not present us with a CO2 problem. It does present us with a CO2 opportunity.

Another Nobel Laureate Says Recycle

 
We reproduce the headlines of this story, from USC, with a brief excerpt.
 
We have previously noted for you the work there of Nobel Laureate George Olah. We submit this, perhaps, redundant information since it, in essence, relates how one recent winner of the Nobel prize is confirming what another Nobel-winning scientist, Paul Sabatier, as in our earlier dispatch, had to say about Carbon Dioxide arising from our use of coal: It can be recycled into liquid fuel.
 
As follows: 

"UOP and University of Southern California developing technology to produce cleaner-burning fuels from carbon dioxide

Technology to produce methanol and dimethyl ether from CO2 aimed at reducing greenhouse gases

13 Dec 2007 - UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced that it will partner with the University of Southern California's (USC) Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute to develop and commercialize new technology to transform carbon dioxide into clean-burning alternative fuels.

 
USC developed fundamental chemistry to transform carbon dioxide to methanol or dimethyl ether, two potentially cleaner-burning alternatives to traditional transportation fuels...
 
"The development of this technology could have significant impact on global energy security, and global warming by converting carbon dioxide into useful products and making new clean fuel technologies available to UOP customers worldwide," said Nobel Laureate and director of USC's Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute George A. Olah."
 
Who are we going to believe? Big Oil and their unwitting, ideologic "Green" allies, or genuine people of science famously awarded, almost a century apart, for their accomplishments of intellect?

Japan Uses Zinc to Liquefy Coal

 
 
Two links are enclosed in this dispatch, one above and one below, with excerpts from each. They describe studies undertaken by Japanese researchers on an alternative process to obtain the necessary Hydrogen, for coal hydrogenation and direct liquefaction into petroleum-like materials, from plain water.
 
Other coal liquefaction processes, most notably WVU's "West Virginia Process", employ Hydrogen donor solvents to convert high-carbon coal into liquid hydrocarbons; others use syngas recycled back into the coal feed; or, they propose breaking water up into Hydrogen and Oxygen via electrolysis. Some researchers suggest using biomass as a Hydrogen source.
 
Appropriately-prepared Zinc, according to these Japanese researchers, will accomplish the necessary fission of Hydrogen and Oxygen from water, as well, without the need for large amounts of electricity, though some heat is required, thus making Hydrogen available to liquefy the coal. And, Zinc can, it seems, be used for that purpose as a part of the "batch", or process stream. 
 
As follows:  
 
"Coal liquefaction by in-situ hydrogen generation.: 1. Zinc-water-coal reaction 

Fanor Mondragon, Hironori Itoh and Koji Ouchi

Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060, Japan

Abstract

Liquefaction of coal was carried out in a zinc—water—solvent system to give a product with high concentration of pyridine and benzene solubles. In this system the metal reacts with water to produce the corresponding metal oxide and hydrogen. This hydrogen was used for in-situ hydrogenation of coal. The effects of reaction time, temperature, type of solvent, the quantity of metal used and the rank of coal were investigated. The solvent has a very marked effect on the conversion of coal to benzene-soluble materials, especially at short reaction times. A maximum benzene conversion of 96% for Taiheiyo coal was obtained when it was treated at 445 °C for 1 h using wash oil as solvent. With regard to the influence of coal rank it was found that low rank coals were more reactive than high rank coals. The amount of preasphaltene is only slightly influenced by coal rank but depends on the temperature and the type of solvent used.

 
Coal liquefaction by in-situ hydrogen generation.: 2. Zinc-water model compound reactions  

Fanor Mondragon and Koji Ouchi

Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060, Japan 

Abstract

Model compound studies were carried out to elucidate the reaction mechanisms taking place during the liquefaction of coal with the hydrogen produced from the reaction of zinc and water. In compounds of the type Ph-(CH2)n-Ph the splitting of the aliphatic bridge was easier with higher n values. Ether type compounds such as diphenylether were unreactive although the C-O bond in dibenzylether was easily cleaved. Condensed ring aromatic compounds gave low conversion with hydrogenation being facilitated by an increase in ring number. Phenolic compounds such as phenol did not react well, but the reactivity increased with increase in aromatic ring size. The cleavage of the aliphatic bridge was accelerated by the OH group, for example, in the case of 4-hydroxydiphenylmethane bond scission was about 15 times higher than that of diphenylmethane. Heterocyclic compounds were unreactive."

Make special note that, in the first Abstract, these researchers report achieving a 96 percent conversion rate of the coal they used in their development work into, essentially, petrochemicals soluble in an organic solvent, when zinc was included in the coal/water starting "mix".

We should note that Zinc is oxidized in these reactions and would, at some point, need to be "refreshed", or, in technical terms "reduced", by removing the oxygen and then recycling the zinc back into the coal liquefaction process.

Refining and recycling the zinc oxide is not difficult.

Without direct reference, we relate that, in Israel, some work has been done on developing Hydrogen-fueled automobiles. Rather, though, than attempting to fuel cars directly with Hydrogen, and then having them zip about the highways like 70 mile-per-hour mini-Hindenburg's, the Israeli's are developing prototypes that would fill up with water, and then convert the water, over on-board Zinc, into Hydrogen and Oxygen, as needed. The spent Zinc Oxide would be exchanged for fresh Zinc, and then "renewed" at a central refinery where the Zinc Oxide would be reduced, via solar energy, back into pure Zinc and Oxygen.

Note that such a concept would be unlikely to work that well in the US. Driving range would almost certainly be a problem, as hydrogen just doesn't have the energy density of liquid hydrocarbons. Even with a full tank of water, these Israeli concepts would be unlikely to have more range than a battery-powered electric vehicle, which might be fine for a physically very small country, like Israel.

But, the same recycling concept could work for coal-to-oil conversion refineries using Zinc to fission water for Hydrogen, even though we don't have that many sunny deserts handy to provide us with abundant solar power. Spent Zinc Oxide could be refreshed, perhaps, in coal furnaces, or in crucibles heated by coal-generated electricity; or, by environmentally-correct hydroelectric power. 

In any case, this is yet another demonstrated channel for the conversion of our abundant coal into needed liquid fuel, and of effecting that conversion using widely-availabe, non-exotic, recyclable materials.