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As we have been, and will continue, documenting, Pittsburgh, PA's, Consolidation Coal Company devoted considerable effort, from the late-1950's and through the mid-1970's, to the development of Coal conversion technologies for the synthesis of liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon fuels.
Primary among the team of scientists they had assigned to that task was our oft-cited Everett Gorin; and, we herein present yet another of his early inventions, which improves both the end products and the economics of synthesizing liquid fuels from Coal.
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As we have many times documented, there are some inefficiencies seemingly inherent in most processes for the indirect conversion of Coal into hydrocarbons; that is, in technologies wherein Coal is first converted into a synthesis gas, "syngas", which is subsequently catalyzed and condensed.
One of the inefficiencies is that not all of the syngas is, for various reasons, converted into hydrocarbons during initial passes over one of the multiple catalysts suitable and effective for promoting such conversion.
The petroleum companies, who, after WWII, began to further develop and refine the already-proven German and Japanese Coal liquefaction technologies, addressed that inefficiency. And, they established ways to profit from it, in the, for them, unhappy eventuality they might actually be forced into utilizing America's vast domestic reserves of Coal to supply liquid fuel to the American market, rather than the, again for them, more profitable sources of cheaper natural petroleum becoming available in Venezuela and Arabia.
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Not so well known, among the general public, is the fact that supplemental Hydrogen is often needed in the refining of some conventional crude petroleum, so that useable hydrocarbon liquids can be made; just as supplemental Hydrogen, in one form or another, from one source or another, is required to hydrogenate raw liquids or synthesis gas derived from Coal, in order to improve the production, from Coal conversion processes, of useful hydrocarbons.
Hydrogen, as compounded in Methane, has been used and proposed for such purposes, just as Methane has been utilized to the same end in most of the Carbon Dioxide reforming and recycling technologies we've been documenting for you.
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We have often cited, in the course of our reportage documenting the efficient and very real technologies that would, if implemented, enable the United States to convert her abundant reserves of Coal into the liquid hydrocarbon fuels she needs, the Coal conversion work of our local Consolidation Coal Company, Consol, now assimilated into Conoco, and of their accomplished Coal conversion scientist, Everett Gorin.
Sadly, we have found the information we've now accumulated concerning Consol's Coal conversion developments to be of such volume that it is beyond our disabled and exigent circumstances to report it all in an organized, coherent fashion.
Consequently, we have elected to begin presenting our remaining documentation of Consol's Coal conversion developments in a piecemeal way, in daily dispatches over the coming weeks - yes, weeks, there is that much of it - organized as best we can, given our circumstances, chronologically.
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United States Patent: 3888750
First, as a foreword, we excerpt a passage taken from the body of this United States Patent, awarded to Pittsburgh's Westinghouse Electric Corporation:
"This application relates to an application Ser. No. 437,575 for Conversion Of Coal Into Hydrocarbons filed concurrently herewith to Andrew R. Jones (herein called Jones application) and assigned to Westinghouse Electric Corporation."
The patent application noted above did result in the award of another United States Patent, for the conversion of Coal into more versatile hydrocarbons, which specifically utilizes Hydrogen to hydrogenate carbonaceous Coal extracts; Hydrogen that is economically produced using the technology specified by this United States Patent.
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