Oil from coal:

Oil from coal:

As petroleum price is increasing due to various reasons, the alternative methods of producing oil gained much importance. The most widely known alternatives involve in extracting oil from sources such as Natural gas (methane), coal, oil shale and tar sands. Though some these sources exist in large quantities, it has become a challenge to extract oil economically and without excessively harming environment. Therefore, in this respect, extraction of oil from coal or from natural gas has been significant.

In fact, technology to extract oil from natural gas or from coal was available since the world war – II; but it was not so much significant until the exorbitant hike in international crude oil prices in last decade. During the World war – II, Germany produced some quantity of oil from coal and there after, South Africa (Sasol) was the major country to produce oil from coal, to meet its energy needs during its isolation under Apartheid. As crude oil prices increase, the cost of coal to oil conversion becomes comparatively cheaper. Now, many countries like China, whose coal production is quite substantial but have less reserve of crude oil, have started producing oil from coal. Recently, India has also started thinking of such conversion of their coal to synthetic oil. This conversion process produces low sulfur diesel fuel but also produces large amounts of greenhouse gases.

The Fischer-Tropsch process is well known for conversion of coal to oil. It is a catalyzed chemical reaction in which carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2) are converted into liquid hydrocarbons of various forms. Typical catalysts used are based on iron and cobalt. The principal purpose of this process is to produce a synthetic petroleum substitute, typically from coal, natural gas or biomass.

There is another process called Karrick process for conversion of coal to synthetic oil. It is a low temperature carbonization (LTC) of coal, shale, lignite or any carbonaceous materials. These are heated at 360 degree Celsius to 749 degree Celsius, in the absence of air to distill out oil and gas. Recently, China has announced high volume commercial coal liquefaction production by this method.