The history of Earth Day traces back to 1970 when then United States Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) came up with the idea. He had long sought a way to inspire people to become more environmentally conscious, and after reading about anti-Vietnam War “teach-ins” on college campuses, he was inspired to start a nationwide teach-in on the environment. His efforts worked and an estimated 20 million people participated in various education activities on April 22, 1970.
In 2009, the United Nations unanimously adopted a resolution designating April 22 each year as International Mother Earth Day. With this in mind, we take a belated look at some interesting patented technologies that relate to a cleaner, greener environment. Today we profile several carbon-capture innovations that caught our attention during a recent search.
Method for Gasification of Carbon-Containing Materials by Thermal Decomposition of Methane and Conversion of Carbon Dioxide
U.S. Patent No. 8663504
With our dependence on fossil fuel-based sources of energy, fuel developers across the world have attempted to find new ways of converting fossil energy while reducing carbon emissions. One method to accomplish this goal is known as gasification, a process in which coal and other solid fuels are converted into gas fuel by reacting carbon-containing materials with steam and oxygen to create synthetic gas. However, gasification does create carbon dioxide and other combustible gases in high quantities.
This recently issued patent, assigned to SK Innovations Co. of Seoul, South Korea, protects a novel gasification method that reduces the generation of CO2 gas. This system reacts the solid carbon fuel with steam in the presence of a catalyst capable of converting the carbon dioxide gas into solid carbon, which can be recycled through the system for further gasification.
Claim 1 of this patent gives SK Innovations Co. the right to protect:
“A method of gasifying a carbon-containing material, comprising: i) reacting the carbon-containing material with steam in the presence of a catalyst comprising a hydroxide, an oxide or a salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal, or a mixture thereof, to produce a gas product including CO, CO2, CH4, H2O and H2, in which the ratio of steam to carbon is in a range of 1 to 2; ii) thermally decomposing CH4 generated in step i) into elemental carbon and H2, with at least a part of the elemental carbon generated being recirculated to step i); and iii) converting CO2 generated in step i) into (a) CO through a reverse water-gas shift reaction, a CO2 reforming reaction, or a C—CO2 gasification reaction, and/or (b) into —(CH2)n— or CH3OH through a CO2 hydrogenation reaction using the product of step i) or step ii); wherein 30 to 70% of the total amount of H2 and CO contained in the as product of step i) is recirculated back to step i).”
System and Method for Determining and Brokering Fuel Emission Offsets
U.S. Patent No. 8682759
Carbon or emission credit trading systems are the major administrative tool for effectively reducing carbon pollution. At the industrial level, it’s relatively easy to regulate a certain level of carbon emissions via a crediting system. However, for individual end users of carbon-generating systems like automobiles, it becomes much more difficult to regulate and broker emission credits.
This patent was issued by the USPTO to solo inventor David Lange of Vancouver, Canada, to protect a system designed to promote hydrogen fuel use in vehicles that also involves a method of brokering credits for an individual engine. This system, which could be applied to vehicle engines retrofitted for hydrogen fuel use, would use an engine sensor to collect emissions information used to determine how many carbon credits will offset an individual engine’s carbon creation.
As Claim 1 states, the solo inventor has now earned the right to protect:
“A non-transitory tangible computer readable storage medium having stored thereon a computer program for implementing a system for determining emissions offset credits associated with the consumption of environmentally cleaner non-petroleum fuels in an environmentally cleaner vehicle designed to obtain all of its automotive power through consumption of a petroleum fuel and which has been retrofitted to obtain at least a portion of its automotive power through consumption of at least one of the environmentally cleaner non-petroleum fuels, the computer program comprising a set of instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform a method comprising the steps of: obtaining an identifier to associate a refueling action with a user of the environmentally cleaner vehicle or with the environmentally cleaner vehicle; and accessing a database containing data entries to record creation of emissions offset credits for the user of the environmentally cleaner vehicle or for the environmentally cleaner vehicle based on the identifier, the emissions offset credits being calculated by comparing an amount of petroleum based fuel used to provide automotive power to the environmentally cleaner vehicle after being retrofitted to obtain at least a portion of the automotive power through consumption of the at least one of the environmentally cleaner non-petroleum fuels with an estimated amount of petroleum based fuel that would have been required to provide equivalent automotive power to the environmentally cleaner vehicle in its original designed condition.”
It should be noted that the original application for this patent was filed in August 2008, and it faced one final rejection before being issued in March 2014. According to one piece of correspondence documented on the USPTO Public Pair website, the patent application was amended in February in response to the patent examiner’s directive that the Abstract section must be shortened before a patent could be issued. While the Abstract maximum of 150 words has been long standing, many issued patent applications have Abstracts much longer than allowed by the rule. It is interesting to see the USPTO enforce this often missed requirement.
Other Recently Issued Patents of Note
Carbon dioxide is not the only dangerous gas created from fossil fuel-based emissions. As is described in U.S. Patent No. 8658115, which is titled Reducing Mercury Emissions from the Burning of Coal, mercury is another combustible gas created from coal burning that poses a public health risk. This patent, assigned to NOx II, Ltd., of Port Clinton, OH, protects a system of applying silica and alumina to coal prior to burning, which improves the capture of mercury as solid ash, keeping it out of the atmosphere.
A new carbon capture substance has been assigned as an intellectual property of West Virginia University through U.S. Patent No. 8658561, entitled Layered Solid Sorbents for Carbon Dioxide Capture. This technology allows CO2-capturing sorbents to be layered at the nanostructural level, providing a greatly increased carbon capture capacity. This system would be designed for use at electrical generation plants, which are responsible for about 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.
Finally, we were also intrigued by the carbon capturing technology outlined and protected by U.S. Patent No. 8658311, issued under the title High Temperature Rechargeable Battery for Greenhouse Gas Decomposition and Oxygen Generation. This patent protects the manufacture of a rechargeable battery using oxygen ions for the combustion of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into solid carbon, oxygen gas and synthetic gas useful in fuel applications.
Tags: carbon emissions, Earth Day, patent, patents
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