USPTO Issues Albemarle Patent Covering Syngas-to-Ethanol Scheme

摘要

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced October 16 that Baton Rouge, La.-based Albemarle Corp. was issued a patent based on a "Selective Process for Conversion of Syngas to Ethanol." According to the abstract released by the USPTO, "The present invention provides processes for selectively producing ethanol from syngas. In some variations, the process comprises converting biomass-derived syngas to dimethyl ether, carbonylating the dimethyl ether to methyl acetate, hydrogenating the methyl acetate to methanol and ethanol, and recovering the ethanol product.