United States Patent: 4089773

 

We have noted, in the course of our reportage, that technologies for the conversion of Coal into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons, suitable as direct replacements for those we now derive from petroleum, can be adapted so that Carbon-recycling and renewable organic materials of biologic origin can be included in the raw material feed.

 

Inclusion and use of such products not only recycles environmental Carbon, and offers the potential for profitable use of what might otherwise be waste materials, but also introduces an element of sustainability.

 

Mobil Oil Corporation, whose Coal conversion expertise we have extensively documented, spells all of that out quite clearly in the United States Patent we enclose herein.

 

United States Patent: 3620698

  

We have extensively documented the Coal gasification conversion expertise of the former Texaco, now a component of Chevron.

 

Since, in a very recent report, we documented that the United States Environmental Protection Agency had utilized a Texaco Coal Gasification facility to, in the process of gasifying Pittsburgh Seam Coal, clean up and convert into hydrocarbon synthesis gas the toxic wastes left by a California petroleum refinery, we thought it timely to submit this report of their advanced technology for, as they put it, improving "the economy and efficiency of ... producing large volumes of synthesis gas comprising principally hydrogen and carbon monoxide", from a variety of organic substances.

 

United States Patent: 4338089

 

This Shell Oil technology is mostly about the processing of synthesis gas, once it is produced from Coal, in order to generate more versatile, and more valuable, hydrocarbons.

 

We submit it only to emphasize, yet again, that hydrogenated synthesis gas suitable for efficient catalytic conversion into more useful hydrocarbons can be readily produced via the Steam gasification of Coal.

 

That fact is highlighted in the following passage excerpted from the main body of the Disclosure, where it is included almost as an isolated aside:

 

"In the process according to the invention the starting material is an H2/CO mixture with an H2/CO molar ratio of less than 1.0. Such H2/CO mixtures can very suitably be prepared by steam gasification of a carbon containing material. Examples of such materials are brown coal, anthracite ... ."