Conversion of solid fuels and products derived there from or other carbonaceous materials into valuable products

We've already documented, a number of times, that the Axis powers, Germany especially, telegraphed their WWII Coal-derived synthetic liquid fuels punch to the rest of the world; and, especially to the United States of America, by, with blunt pragmatism, openly obtaining US Patents on their Coal hydrogenation and liquefaction synthetic fuel technologies in the years immediately before the bombs started falling in London.

Herein we submit yet another example of that exercise in intellectual directness.

United States Patent Application: 0070149392

Reactor for carbon dioxide capture and conversion

Abstract

Disclosed herein is a multifunctional catalyst system comprising a substrate; and a catalyst pair disposed upon the substrate; wherein the catalyst pair comprises a first catalyst and a second catalyst; and wherein the first catalyst initiates or facilitates the reduction of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide while the second catalyst initiates or facilitates the conversion of carbon monoxide to an organic compound. Disclosed herein is a method comprising reducing carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide in a first reaction catalyzed by a first catalyst; and reacting carbon monoxide with hydrogen in a second reaction catalyzed by second catalyst; wherein the first catalyst and the second catalyst are disposed upon a single substrate.

http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/01/carbon_seq/5a1.pdf

We have several times documented that efforts have been underway to establish biological routes for the industrial-scale recycling of Carbon Dioxide, by using various organisms to transform CO2, recovered from whatever source, into various hydrocarbons.

An example would be: USDOE Biotechnology Converts CO2 to Diesel Fuel | Research & Development; which concerns: "CO2 Sources for Microalgae-based Liquid Fuel Production; Solar Energy Research Inst., Golden, CO; Sponsor: USDOE; Abstract: Researchers in the Aquatic Species Program at the Solar Energy Research Institute are developing species of microalgae that have high percentages of lipids, or oils (which) can be extracted and converted to diesel fuel substitutes". And, wherein they confirm, again, that, for the purposes of Carbon Dioxide recycling directed toward the synthesis of various hydrocarbon fuels, it "is conceivable that CO2 could be recovered directly from the atmosphere"; presumably in places where environmental energy, i.e., sunlight or wind, could be harnessed to the collection and conversion tasks.

United States Patent: 7087804

As with any number of expositions and dissertations, especially as in some of those originating from the Oil industry we have documented for you, which concern the conversion of our abundant Coal into more versatile hydrocarbons, use of the dirty, four-letter word "Coal", is avoided herein to the point of absurdity.

We conjecture that, in the United States Patent we report in this dispatch, based on the way the full Disclosure is formatted, our honest US Government patent examiners compelled the inventor, and the assignee of rights, Chevron, to at least insert, near the end of the document, a separate "Definitions" section, wherein their weasel phrases are clarified.