Coal Liquefaction Reduces Energy Transport Costs

United States Patent: 6635681

 

A potential economic benefit of Coal liquefaction which might not readily leap to mind is revealed in the Chevron technology we report in this dispatch.

As with natural deposits of crude petroleum, commercially-significant beds of Coal aren't always close to established routes of transport, and mine sites can thus be remote from "the market".

Transport costs, even if suitable transportation routes are available, could thus be so excessive that mining the Coal, for any purpose, would be uneconomical.

That issue has been addressed by others previously, and one solution that has been proposed to lower the costs of Coal transport - though we haven't researched to find out if it has anywhere been reduced to genuine commercial practice - is to grind Coal up at the mine site, blend it into water, and then pump the resulting "slurry", via pipeline, for delivery to the end-use or refining and processing locations.

Coal & CO2 "Produce Valuable Liquid Fuels"

1915 CO2 Recycling | Research & Development | News

 

This dispatch will be cumbersome to read and, perhaps, somewhat redundant, since we're including, in addition to the initial link, which leads to one of our reports already posted on the West Virginia Coal Association's web site, an additional four links, with excerpts, one or two of which you might, as well, have already seen.

We think it important to put them all together in this fashion, since, taken as a whole, they illustrate quite clearly one pathway in which a potential we have several times documented can be made real, which potential being, that:

Carbon Dioxide, reclaimed from whatever source, and Coal, can be combined and reacted together; and, the products of their interaction can then be recombined in a coordinated sequence of additional reactions that will lead to the synthesis and production of hydrocarbons.

Maryland Hydrogasifies CoalTL Residues

United States Patent: 4224137

 

We must preface this submission with some caveats.

First, concerning the named inventor of the US Patent we enclose via the above link, there was, according to web-based resources, a Wilburn Schroeder who worked at the US Bureau of Mines Experiment Station in College Park, MD.

But, he worked for the USBM, it seems, during the 1940's; and, there is no indication in the full disclosure of this patent, issued nearly forty years subsequent to Schroeder's verifiable tenure at the College Park USBM lab, concerning the state of his health.

WVU Hydrogenates Coal Tar

http://wvuscholar.wvu.edu:8881//exlibris/dtl/d3_1/apache_media/22699.pdf

 

We have many times made reference to West Virginia University's "West Virginia Process" for the direct liquefaction of Coal.

In that technical process, WVU employs, we have been led to believe, as do others in similar technologies we have documented for you, a Hydrogen-donor solvent most commonly referred to as "Tetralin".

The more proper, technical name is "Tetrahydronaphthalene", and, it is synthesized by hydrogenating the primary Coal oil, Naphthalene.

Herein, we wanted, especially in light of pending reports concerning developments, in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, to affirm and further illustrate the detail and depth of understanding, as regards the preparation and utility of Tetralin, that exists at WVU.

Minnesota & WV CO2 + CH4 + H2O = Syngas

United States Patent: 6254807

 

Without further citation, we submit that one of the two inventors named in the United States Patent we discuss herein, Paul Witt, is a native of Dunbar, WV, who, according to web-based resources, is now employed by Dow Chemical.

At the time the technology disclosed by this patent was being developed, Witt was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, studying under the tutelage of Professor Lanny Schmidt, Regents Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.