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United States Patent Application: 0100105962
We earlier reported that collaborative scientists in Texas and Saudi Arabia, all in the employ of Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation, "SABIC", had developed, and applied for a United States Patent on, a process wherein Carbon Dioxide, whether, we suggest, reclaimed from the atmosphere or sucked back up out of a leaky old oil well, where it had, by law, been "sequestered", could be catalytically reacted with gases containing Hydrogen and converted thereby into a synthesis gas suitable for further catalytic reaction, as, perhaps, through Fischer-Tropsch, or related, technology, and subsequent conversion into liquid hydrocarbons.
Our report is available as: Saudi Arabia Coverts CO2 to Fuel | Research & Development | News; and, it details: "United States Patent Application Publication Number US2010/0190874A1; Catalytic Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide into Syngas Mixtures; Publication date: July 29, 2010; Inventors: Agaddin Mamedov, Texas, and Abdulaziz Al-Jodai, et. al., Riyadh, Saudi Arabia".
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We have many times extolled, and documented, the rather vast utility of Methane.
It is, for instance, a key component of "tri-reforming" technology, such as described best and most lately, as we've documented, by scientists at Penn State University, wherein it can be reacted with reclaimed Carbon Dioxide and made thereby to synthesize liquid hydrocarbons.
Further, in fact, via separate dispatch today, we are sending along report of: United States Patent Application: 0100105962; "Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide into Syngas Mixture", wherein Saudi Arabian and Texas scientists, in the employ of the oil industry, disclose that Methane can be utilized in the conversion of Carbon Dioxide into a synthesis gas suitable for catalytic condensation into Methanol and other hydrocarbon fuels.
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Process for the conversion of a normally gaseous hydrocarbon to carbon monoxide and hydrogen
The title of the US Patent we enclose in this dispatch, relative to our headline label, might at first seem misleading, since it doesn't mention Coal, but only "gaseous hydrocarbon".
A close read of the full document reveals, however, that the subject "gaseous hydrocarbon" is, or can be, generated by, specifically, "the gasification of coal with oxygen and steam".
And, the entire, though obliquely stated, purpose of this US Government-approved technology is to "improve" the product gas obtained by such Coal gasification, and "particularly" when it is to be used "as a feed for the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis", wherein, as the Disclosure states, "hydrogen and carbon monoxide are converted into hydrocarbons, including those in the gasoline range and ... alcohols".
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First, neither Coal nor Carbon Dioxide are mentioned by name in this United States Patent, awarded to Exxon, which discloses an improved method of synthesizing hydrocarbons by gasifying Carbon with Steam.
Exxon prefers, for reasons we can only surmise, to specify "graphite" as the raw material; although they do confess that their "process will also gasify mixtures of graphite and amorphous carbon".
Further, the gasification is to be conducted on a rather intimate mixture of such Carbon and a catalytic metal, such as Nickel, Cobalt or Molybdenum.
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We submit herein yet another example of technology developed prior to WWII, wherein reclaimed Carbon Dioxide can be reacted with hot Coal, and recycled thereby into Carbon Monoxide.
Of special interest might be the inventor's projected source of the Carbon Dioxide.
The corporate owner of the patent rights, Semet-Solvay Engineering Corporation, might not ring any bells for you, but, according to multiple web-based sources, by the time the enclosed US Patent was issued the company had already been acquired by Allied Chemical, which itself went on, through a series of corporate transformations as Allied Corporation and Allied-Signal, to, finally, undergo a 1999 merger and acquisition with Honeywell, with the Honeywell name being applied to the new entity.
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