Exxon Gasifies Coal, and Steam-Gasifies the Char

United States Patent: 5055181

We have previously cited both of the Exxon scientists named as inventors herein; but, not, as far as we have yet been able to determine, in the context of the invention which is the subject of this report.

In the process they disclose via this United States Patent, they confirm several things we have - most often separately - already many times documented for you:

First, Coal can be gasified, and be made thereby to yield a blend of gases suitable for catalytic conversion into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels; with, during the gasification process itself, the direct formation of some liquids which can be expediently recovered prior to the catalytic conversion of the generated "syngas".

England Turns Carbon Dioxide into Fuel

Turning carbon dioxide into fuel

We're not able at this time to provide you with a reference link to our earlier dispatch concerning it, but, we have previously reported on the technology being developed at England's fabled Oxford University, technology which would enable us to, instead of treating our Coal Country effluent Carbon Dioxide like a shameful toxic waste, reclaim that Carbon Dioxide and utilize it in a way that reflects what it truly is:

A valuable raw material resource from which we can synthesize a wide variety of useful organic chemicals, including liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels.

Kentucky Helps PA to Improve Coal Liquefaction

United States Patent: 4511460

We have many times documented the USDOE-funded International Coal Refining (ICR) operation, a Coal liquefaction joint venture of the Air Products and Chemicals Company and Wheelabrator-Frye, Inc.; as most  recently in: USDOE Funds Pennsylvania Coal Liquefaction | Research & Development.

Without linking to other of our earlier reports, we remind you that ICR itself was type of "Solvent Refined Coal", or "SRC", Coal liquefaction pilot-scale factory near Allentown, PA.

We have, in some of those earlier reports, noted that other entities, as well, participated in the development and operation of the ICR plant, and, herein, we learn, indirectly, that the University of Kentucky's Center for Applied Energy Research was one of those participants.

Pittsburgh 1951 Carbon Monoxide + Water = Hydrocarbons

Process of synthesizing hydrocarbons

We've earlier reported, as in:

Standard Oil Carbon Monoxide + Water = Gasoline | Research & Development; which concerned: "United States Patent 4,559,363 - Process for Reacting Carbon Monoxide and Water; Date: December, 1985; A process for reacting carbon monoxide and water ... for the production of hydrocarbons by reacting carbon monoxide and water"; that:

Catalysts, and processes based on those catalysts, exist, which enable the synthesis of hydrocarbons from nothing but Water, perhaps in the form of Steam, and Carbon Monoxide as the starting materials.

Pennsylvania Converts Even More Coal to Liquid Fuels

United States Patent: 4411766

In many previous reports, we've documented the participation of Pennsylvania's Air Products and Chemicals Company in the USDOE-sponsored International Coal Refining Company, ICR, and, in the operation, by ICR, of a pilot-scale Coal liquefaction facility in Allentown, PA.

Numerous US Patents related to Coal conversion technology arose from that effort, most of them assigned to ICR, with an included statement attesting to the US Government's part-ownership of the rights to the disclosed technology.