United States Patent: 6066187

We frequently make reference - - in the course of our reportage concerning the technologies which exist that would, if we all were aware of them, enable us to start thinking of, and treating, Carbon Dioxide as a valuable raw material resource; rather than as a dangerous pollutant we have to spend a lot of money collecting and then stuffing down leaky "geologic sequestration" rat holes - - to the "Green Freedom"(TM) concept being developed by our USDOE's western National Laboratories.

Herein, via the initial link in this dispatch, we present the first of three United States Patents directly related to the Green Freedom (TM) concept - if not directly or specifically precedent to that technology itself - issued to multiple inventors, whose affiliations, since there is no assignment of patent rights, we must separately report, based on our conclusions drawn from information available in web-accessible publications, as follows:

Separation of hydrogen

We have earlier cited the Coal conversion achievements of both the German scientists named in this, yet another pre-WWII Coal liquefaction technology developed by German scientists; and another one in which the rights to the technology were assigned to a New Jersey corporation.

Ernst Donath, specifically, we remind you without linking to earlier of our reports, was a key figure in Germany's development of Coal-derived liquid fuel technology, which the Axis powers utilized to a great extent during the war. He was, subsequent to WWII, as we have previously documented, consigned to some sort of cushy exile in the US Virgin Islands, where he, and/or, possibly, his son, continued to develop Coal conversion technologies, in service to the US Department of the Interior, the original parent agency of the US Bureau of Mines.

We have also reported the independent Carbon conversion achievements of Heidelberg scientist Mathias Pier; and, we see herein that the two teamed up to develop a procedure for more completely hydrogenating carbonaceous liquids derived from Coal, and converting those Coal liquids into hydrocarbon fuel raw materials.

Comment follows brief excerpts from the link to, and attached file of:

"United States Patent 1,938,087 - Separation of Hydrogen

Date: December, 1933

Inventors: Mathias Pier and Ernst Donath, Germany

Assignee: Standard-I.G. Company, New Jersey

Abstract: This invention relates to improvements in the separation of hydrogen which expression also comprises gases rich in hydrogen from gaseous mixtures ... .

We have found that hydrogen or gases rich in hydrogen can frequently be separated from ... industrial gases such as water gas ... (and) waste gases from destructive hydrogenation processes in a very advantageous manner and without troublesome chemical conversions by washing the gaseous mixture at elevated temperature and increased pressure with a hydrocarbon liquid ... .

(First, such "destructive hydrogenation processes" which can produce generous quantities of Hydrogen, would include, as we've separately and variously documented, the Steam-gasification of Coal. But, the kicker is to follow, as immediately below.)

Among hydrocarbon liquids (are included) the products of the destructive hydrogenation of coal ... or products obtained by the distillation of the same.

(In other words, plain old Coke oven tars, as would be "obtained by distillation of" Coal, could qualify as the "hydrocarbon liquids" which would be combined with "waste gases from destructive" Steam-gasification of Coal, to from more-fully hydrogenated hydrocarbon liquids.)

It is particularly advantageous ... to employ the waste gases containing hydrogen and gaseous hydrocarbons obtained by the destructive hydrogenation itself as the gas mixture from which the hydrogen is to be separated.

(Note, again: Pier and Donath are specifying that the gases obtained from the Steam-gasification of Coal are to be combined with the tars obtained from that Steam-gasification, to effect the production of  fully hydrogenated hydrocarbon liquids.)

Claims: A process for the separation of a gas rich in hydrogen from a gaseous mixture ... which comprises washing the said mixture ... with a hydrocarbon liquid."

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To rephrase and summarize:

In a coking process wherein Steam is added to the mix of Oxygen-deficient gases with which Coal is being coked, both Coal tars and a Hydrogen-enriched gas are produced.

Those products can be combined, in a "washing" process, as disclosed herein by Pier and Donath, to extract Hydrogen from the product gas and transfer it into the somewhat Hydrogen-deficient Coal-derived "hydrocarbon liquid".

We submit, although Pier and Donath go on to explain how the Hydrogen can then be extracted from the Coal liquids, presumably for use in other applications, that the more-fully hydrogenated Coal liquids could then be further processed, in something more akin to a modern petroleum refinery, and made thereby to produce direct substitutes for standard petroleum products.

In any case, the accomplished German Coal conversion scientists, Donath and Pier, as confirmed by the United States Government, herein reaffirm a fact we have previously documented:

We can manufacture fully-hydrogenated hydrocarbon liquids, direct replacements for anything we now derive from natural petroleum, from Coal; and, we don't really need anything but Coal, and Water, to accomplish the transmutation.

United States Patent: 4350582

We've submitted multiple reports concerning the Coal conversion processes developed by Chevron, formerly Standard Oil of California - who inherited a suite of Coal liquefaction technologies, as we've documented, in their 1985 acquisition of/merger with Pittsburgh, PA's former Gulf Oil Corporation; which included Gulf's P&M (Coal) Mining subsidiary.

We have also earlier cited the Chevron Coal scientist, Joel Rosenthal, named as the lead inventor in the two United States Patents, issued in quick succession, we include herein via the initial and following links.

In the technologies disclosed by Rosenthal, we see that, in confirmation of many of our earlier reports, a liquid solvent derived from a total Coal liquefaction process can be utilized in the initial step of raw Coal dissolution; and, that, such a conversion process can be accomplished thoroughly and cleanly.

Process for distilling and liquefying coal

Since we are, today, via separate dispatch, sending along report of multiple Coal liquefaction technologies developed by Chevron, in California, as disclosed by: "US Patent 4,350,582 - Two-Stage Coal Liquefaction Process with Process-Derived Solvent" and "US Patent 4,358,359 - Two-Stage Coal Liquefaction Process", we wanted herein to more fully explain an earlier Coal liquefaction process that is specifically cited as prior art by those Chevron inventions.

The "Bergius Process", as in a few of our previous reports, was a Coal conversion technology developed by one Friedrich Bergius, of Heidelberg, Germany, in the decade following World War I.