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We see herein that our own United States Government, as embodied in the USDOE's Pittsburgh,PA, former US Bureau of Mines, facilities, three decades ago, devoted itself to establishing technology that efficiently manufactures a gaseous mixture of Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen, in apparently variable proportions, by reacting Steam with hot Coal.
An advance excerpt from the full Disclosure cuts to the chase:
"In accordance with the present invention, a process for gasifying solid carbonaceous material by its reaction with H2O and O2 is provided ... to form CO and H2."
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As we have many times documented, one factor that is key to producing liquid hydrocarbon fuels from our abundant reserves of Coal is the efficient chemical addition of Hydrogen, to the primarily carbonaceous compounds that we can easily derive from Coal.
In a project that should have concluded and been reported precisely two months ago, the Morgantown, WV, National Energy Technology Laboratory of the United States Department of Energy was supposed to have finished addressing that issue.
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Herein is yet another Coal liquefaction process developed by Mobil, prior to their merger with Exxon.
The Coal conversion technology described herein is a sophisticated, integrated process designed to take advantage of the full product "slate" generated by the Fischer-Tropsch indirect process of converting Coal, through the initial production of synthesis gas, into various, and more versatile, hydrocarbons.
That product slate includes the heat energy arising from the controlled oxidation of Coal during syngas production, which Mobil intends using to generate Steam for the purpose of needed hydrogenation.
And, rather than uneconomically "forcing" the conversion of Coal into a narrow product range, through additional reaction and processing steps, Mobil suggests, simply, that we take fullest advantage of the things that are produced.
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Herein is yet another Coal liquefaction process developed by Exxon, prior to their merger with Mobil.
And, somewhat surprisingly, that is exactly what they call it.
Based on our experience in researching these technologies, it is unusual for the originators of such processes, and/or our US Patent examiners, to so plainly label inventions which describe the ways in which Coal can be transformed into petroleum replacements.
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Simply: Carbon Dioxide can be collected and then electrolyzed, in the presence of "OH", hydroxide, ions to form the liquid fuel and, as in ExxonMobil's "MTG"(r) process, Gasoline raw material, Methanol.
The technology disclosed in this United States Patent, developed and owned by the United States Department of Energy, is thus closely related to similar processes we have already documented for the West Virginia Coal Association that were developed by contractors, such as United Technologies, for our United States Department of Defense.
The difference in the Carbon Dioxide recycling technology developed by USDOE scientist Meyer Steinberg lies in the fact that the "OH" ion, needed to react with the CO2, is derived not from the electrolysis of Water, but from the electrolysis of a solution of Potassium Hydroxide and Potassium Carbonate/Bicarbonate in Water.
That fact has a few important implications perhaps not clearly spelled out by the Brookhaven, NY, National Laboratory's Steinberg.
First: The solution of Potassium by Water, to form the Potassium Hydroxide, KOH, specified by Steinberg, is an aggressive, exothermic reaction that needs no help in getting started or, aside from the addition of new raw materials, in continuing.
And, that reaction generates Hydrogen as a by-product, which could be collected and utilized in other, follow-on and related, processes of Carbon hydrogenation. However, we suppose that, once Steinberg's process is in motion, it will likely be unnecessary to create much more KOH in that fashion, unless it is desired to do so. Subsequent processing seems to regenerate much, if not all, of the original KOH.
Second: KOH solutions are almost ideal, and in some cases are specified, for use in Carbon Dioxide scrubbers. The CO2 passing through reacts with the Potassium Hydroxide to form Potassium Carbonate, and/or Bicarbonate, one supposes, still in solution with Water.
Those solutions dramatically reduce the electrical resistance of Water; and, as a consequence, they dramatically reduce the electrical energy required to reduce, to electrolyze, the solutions into reactive components of Hydrogen, Carbon and Oxygen, that can then be recombined, as in this USDOE process, to form Methanol.
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