The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 23, 2008
Filed:
Mar. 31, 2006
Meyer Steinberg, Melville, NY (US);
Meyer Steinberg, Melville, NY (US);
HCE, LLC, Oakton, VA (US);
Abstract
The invention is a continuous process for producing methane from an underground coal bed or an above ground carbon-containing resource using hydrogen as a recycling working fluid. For an underground coal seam, the process includes injecting () hydrogen into the coal seam to form a reaction effluent of methane, hydrogen and carbon monoxide; extracting the reaction effluent () for processing above ground; cleaning the reaction effluent (); cooling the cleaned reaction effluent () and processing it through a water gas shift reactor (); separating () hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide into separate streams; producing the carbon dioxide stream () as a product gas; processing a first portion () of the methane stream in a steam reformer, water gas shift reactor and gas separator () to produce segregated flows of hydrogen and carbon dioxide, combining the segregated hydrogen flow with the separated hydrogen stream (); heating and repressurizing () the combined hydrogen stream to the temperature and pressure of the hydrogen in the first step; producing a second portion () of said methane stream as a product gas; and injecting () the combined hydrogen stream into the underground coal bed to continue the process.