Exxon Reduces Coal Hydrogasification Costs

United States Patent: 4336034

As now available on the West Virginia Coal Association's web site as:

Exxon Coal + CO2 + H2O Combo Gasification & Conversion | Research & Development | News;

wherein is detailed: "United States Patent 4,318,712 - Catalytic Coal Gasification Process; March, 1982; Inventors: Robert Lang and Joanne Pabst; Assignee: Exxon Research and Engineering, NJ";

we have previously documented that, essentially three decades ago, a team of Exxon scientists had, in confirmation of many similar reports concerning such potentials we have now brought to your attention, devised a technology and process of Coal hydro-, or Steam-, gasification which is so productive of Hydrogen that it enables the addition of Carbon Dioxide, recovered from other sources, into the mix of Coal and Steam, that, when all are appropriately reacted together, can be converted into a synthesis gas suitable for catalytic transmutation, as via, for one instance, the Fischer-Tropsch process, into a variety of gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons.

Exxon 1977

Exxon 1997 Coal Liquefaction Residue Steam-Gasification | Research & Development | News

USDOE and Wisconsin CO2 to Hydrocarbon Fuels

Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information - - Document #973340

In this report, we see that our United States Department of Energy, through our Sandia National Laboratory, in New Mexico, contracted and worked with a team of collaborating and visiting scholars from the University of Wisconsin, to, as they put it, establish the "fundamentals of synthetic conversion of CO2 to simple hydrocarbon fuels".

Esso 1974 Lower-Cost Coal Conversion

Patent US3841991

 

We have documented to, we're certain, the point of tedium the multitudinous Coal liquefaction and conversion technologies that were developed, over multiple decades, by the various companies which at last coalesced into that lovable giant, ExxonMobil.

But, herein is yet another; albeit one with a delightful twist for those who object that CoalTL is too costly.

Esso themselves say that all the improvements in Coal liquefaction science they disclose and catalog herein "make the economics of the process appear attractive".

Moreover, as you will see via an additional reference appended, their improvements also likely prevent the release of any Carbon Dioxide.

USDOE Idaho Lab Recycles More CO2

Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information - - Document #912896

 

We've written previously about the Carbon Dioxide recycling achievements being made at our US Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory.

A recent report is accessible via:

USDOE Carbon-Neutral Syngas from CO2 and H2O | Research & Development | News; wherein is detailed the: "Carbon Neutral Production of Syngas Via ... Electrolytic Reduction of Steam and CO2; 2007; By: C. Stoots, J. O'Brien and J. Hartvigsen; Idaho National Laboratory", and, which disclosed the "results of experiments conducted at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) studying coelectrolysis of steam and carbon dioxide".