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We continue to document the ongoing development, and improvement, of Coal conversion technologies, throughout the latter half of the last century, by the companies that became ExxonMobil, with this submission from very nearly four decades ago.
Like much of what we report, it confirms that, not only have petroleum companies known how to convert our abundant Coal into liquid hydrocarbons, into direct replacements for imported petroleum, for a very long time, but, they were also continuously at work improving those technologies of Coal conversion.
The invention described herein is merely a refinement on an established Coal liquefaction technology, which uses products derived from Coal to improve the yields of liquid hydrocarbons produced from Coal.
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The hydrocarbon compound named "Ethylene", also known as "ethene", according to web-based sources, is a widely-used industrial raw material. A lot of very useful things can be made out of it.
In fact, according to the seemingly-omniscient Wikipedia:
"Ethylene is the most produced organic compound in the world (and) to meet the ever increasing demand for ethylene, sharp increases in production facilities have been added globally, particularly in the Persian Gulf countries."
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We previously submitted report of "United States Patent 3,740,193 - Hydrogen (from) Steam Gasification of Carbonaceous Materials", which was awarded, in 1973, to Louisiana scientists working for Esso, before it became Exxon.
Herein, we see that, even earlier, one of the lead inventors of that technology, and a different Esso colleague, had developed a somewhat different Coal hydro-gasification process, very similar to others we've previously documented, wherein the Steam-gasification of Coal can be directed in such a way as to yield Methane, a valuable hydrocarbon gas whose versatility and potential importance we've been reporting on, and which we'll recap briefly, following excerpts from:
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We make no more apologies for redundancy, if that is what this submission seems to be. This is an issue that must be repeated and emphasized until it sinks in.
Hydrogen is needed for the hydrogenation of carbonaceous raw materials derived from Coal, so that those Coal-derived products can be further, completely and economically, processed into direct replacements for the liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels our current economy is dependent on; and, which we currently rely on increasingly scarce, increasingly expensive, OPEC-type petroleum sources for the supply of.
More than half a century ago, our local Consolidation Coal Company, and their lead Coal conversion scientist, whom we have cited many times before, Everett Gorin, clearly detailed, with the Patent Office approval of our United States Government, how we could economically and locally obtain all of the Hydrogen we need for the upgrading of Coal liquids, through catalyzed reactions between Coal and Steam.
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We have documented, and, because of the importance we instinctively feel should be ascribed to the concept, will continue to document, the fact that Hydrogen-rich gasses, such as Methane, and other hydrocarbon products, can be generated via the Steam-gasification of Coal.
The concept is important, since Coal is composed primarily of Carbon, which must in some way be efficiently hydrogenated so that needed liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon products, suitable as direct substitutes for those we now extract from petroleum, can be synthesized from Coal.
Moreover, as concerns the production of Methane, which is the primary target of the Esso invention we document herein, that specific material is assuming, for us, in the course of our ongoing study, increasing importance, for reasons we have already many times elaborated for you.
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