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Return to Abstracts of Patents Return to Abstracts of Patents 1000-1249 Patent Abstracts1033. HERBST, W. A. (Standard Oil Development Co.). United States Patent 2,631,933, Mar. 17, 1953; appl. Filed Oct. 15, 1947, Serial No. 780,072; 5 claims (Cl. 48-196). Chem. Abs., vol. 47, 1953, p. 6637. Hydrocarbon gases such as CH4 or natural gas are contacted with turbulent, fluidized metal oxide particles capable of oxidizing the gases to CO and H2 at a temperature experimentally shown to give optimum yields. Then the fluidized O carrier is passed through a classifier, preferably a packed vessel, where the agglomerates are segregated from the particles of satisfactory fluidity. The satisfactory particles are returned to the process for reoxidation. The classifying metal oxide carrier regeneration steps to be carried out at higher temperatures than would be possible if the agglomerates were not removed. For effective operation the carrier particles in CH4 or natural gas oxidation step should be 10-300 p. in size, with 75% being larger than 44μ. With the classification stage and the higher operating temperatures (1,400°-1,800° F. in the gas oxidizer and 1,600°-2,000° F. in the regenerator), the particles of smaller size tend to be more readily agglomerated and the particles larger than 250-300p. are continuously removed. 5 United States patents cited. |