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We have previously reported on "tri-reforming" technologies, wherein Carbon Dioxide can be reacted with both Steam and Methane, and made thereby to generate a synthesis gas suitable for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbons.
A number of US Patents, some dating back half a century, as we have documented for the West Virginia Coal Association, have been issued to major petroleum companies for such, and similar, technology.
As we have also reported, Penn State University has been at work in recent years to further develop those sorts of Carbon Dioxide recycling processes, and we herein present further documentation of their achievements.
What is most notable in this submission is, that, in confirmation of earlier reports, raw flue gas can be utilized in the reforming/recycling reactions.
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We present herein only the briefest of excerpts from the enclosed link and attached file.
The technicalities of it all are gibberish to us, as we presume they would be to all but the most highly initiated cognoscenti.
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The inventor named in this United States Patent, which documents a way in which environmental energy can be harnessed to convert Carbon Dioxide, from any source, into the liquid fuel, Methanol, is a scientist we have cited previously, as documented in the West Virginia Coal Association R&D Blog, with respect to his work with colleagues in Switzerland and Israel, wherein processes were refined, similar to the one disclosed herein, that enable the conversion of Carbon Dioxide, in various "bi-reforming" or "tri-reforming" reactions with Water and/or Methane, into valuable higher hydrocarbons.
The invention he discloses herein is very similar to other technologies we have recorded as being under development by scientists, such as Rich Diver, at the USDOE's Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, one actually named "Green Freedom", wherein sunlight, specifically, is used to power what might be described as an "artificial photosynthesis" process, a reaction sequence driven by light energy that consumes Carbon Dioxide in the production of various hydrocarbons.
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The half-century-old Standard Oil technology disclosed herein is directed toward the complete conversion of the Carbon contained in low grade Coal into both liquid "motor fuels", and, either by-product substitute natural gas, "fuel gas", or, additional liquid hydrocarbon synthesis gas.
In it's Disclosure, this official United States Government publication confirms, and further validates, at least two technical concepts we have lately, from other sources, been documenting:
Coal, perhaps especially low grade Coal, can be made to emit volatile gasses, as are suitable for catalytic condensation into liquid hydrocarbons, via long-known "coking" processes, herein, and as elsewhere, referred to as "carbonization" and/or "distillation".
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We have, in a number of previous reports, documented that South Africa Synthetic Oil Limited, SASOL, has, for many decades, been making a variety of liquid hydrocarbon fuels, in multiple facilities, out of Coal.
We have also reported that China, with the help of West Virginia University and the University of North Dakota, among others, has established a Coal liquefaction industrial base which it, at least at one time, planned, again as we documented, to expand to include eighty eight Coal conversion factories.
Herein, we see that China and South Africa are combining their Coal liquefaction talents in order to build and expand the industry.
One interesting forward note: We long ago documented that volatile Coke oven gasses, produced during the conversion of raw Coal into Coke for steel making, and most usually vented or flared, could be recovered and catalytically condensed into liquid hydrocarbons.
That is exactly what the first China-SASOL joint project will entail: Producing liquid hydrocarbon fuels from Coke oven off-gasses generated by their steel industry.
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