Upgrading Coal Liquids

276 Pages·1981·3.28 MB·English

by  Richard F. Sullivan (Eds.)

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02 Upgrading Coal Liquids
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In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
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In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
Upgrading Coal Liquids
Richard F. Sullivan, EDITOR
Chevron Research Company
Based on a symposium
jointly sponsored by the
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ACS SYMPOSIUM SERIES 156
AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
WASHINGTON, D. C. 1981
In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
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1- Upgrading coal liquids.
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19 (ACS symposium series; 156)
bk- Includes bibliographies and index.
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2 1. Coal liquefaction—Congresses.
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0.1 I. Sullivan, Richard F., 1929- II. American
1 Chemical Society, Division of Fuel Chemistry. III.
oi: American Chemical Society. Division of Petroleum
1 | d Chemistry. IV. Series.
8 TP352.U63 662'.6622 81-1277
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1 ISBN 0-8412-0629-5 AACR2
0, ACSMC8 156 1-277 1981
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n Copyright © 1981
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cati American Chemical Society
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
ACS Symposium Series
M. Joan Comstock, Series Editor
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8 Advisory Board
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James D. Idol, Jr. Gunter Zweig
In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
FOREWORD
The ACS SYMPOSIUM SERIES was founded in 1974 to provide
a medium for publishing symposia quickly in book form. The
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0 format of the Series parallels that of the continuing ADVANCES
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15 papers are not typeset but are reproduced as they are sub
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1- mitted by the authors in camera-ready form. Papers are re
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1 viewed under the supervision of the Editors with the assistance
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02 integrity of the symposia; however, verbatim reproductions of
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In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
PREFACE
O
ur current dependence on petroleum is a natural result of economic
forces: petroleum products until recently were much cheaper than
liquid hydrocarbons derived from other sources such as coal, oil shale,
01 and tar sands. We have also developed over the years transportation and
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pr domestic uses for liquid fuels that could be produced from petroleum at
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15 a relatively low cost. As the supply of petroleum becomes shorter, the
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1- alternative of synthetic fuels, derived from hydrocarbon resources other
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1 than petroleum, becomes more attractive, provided that they can be up
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b graded to suit our needs. If synthetic fuels could not be refined to suit
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02 our existing uses, we would be forced at an extraordinarily high expense
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0. to reinvent, redesign, and replace much of our end use equipment. There
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oi: fore, both production and upgrading of synfuels are critical to the goal of
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1 Although coal can be used directly in many stationary power plants
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2 equipped with appropriate environmental safeguards, it must be converted
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un to a liquid before it can serve as a substitute for present-day transportation
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e: fuels or home heating oils. Liquids have been obtained from coal for
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atio major effort is now being made to develop new and improved coal lique
blic faction technologies.
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P Typically, liquids derived from coal are lower in hydrogen content

and contain more impurities than do petroleum products. These impuri
ties consist of atoms other than hydrogen and carbon, that is, nitrogen,
sulfur, oxygen, and inorganic materials. Upgrading of coal liquids to make
specification fuels typically involves both hydrogen addition and removal
of impurities.
This book presents results of studies representative of the type of
work in progress today on the upgrading of coal liquids. Information is
presented on composition of coal liquids, the chemistry of upgrading, a
variety of processing routes, catalyst evaluations, biological tests, and cost
studies. Most of the chapters in this book were originally presented at
the 179th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in March
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In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
of 1980; many of them have been revised and updated. It is our hope
that this book will serve as a convenient reference for those currently
involved in related research areas and will serve as a building block for
future work.
RICHARD F. SULLIVAN
Chevron Research Company
Richmond, California
November 7, 1980
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In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
1
The Composition of Liquids From Coals of
Different Rank
G. P. STURM, JR., J. E. DOOLEY, J. S. THOMSON,
P. W. WOODWARD, and J. W. VOGH
U.S. Department of Energy, Bartlesville Energy Technology Center,
Bartlesville, OK 74003
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0 Among the many reports in the literature on coal liquefaction,
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6.c several indicate a relationship between the rank of the coal and
15 the complexity of the hydrocarbon groups in the coal and in its
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1- liquefaction products. This subject was reviewed in some detail
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9 in previous reports (l.,2_) and will only be summarized and updated
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10 Background
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oi: Early German work indicated that the lower-rank brown coals
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98 produce smaller polynuclear hydrocarbon units (3) than bituminous
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e 2 with the coal rank to a minimum for sub-bituminous coals. Early
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u work by the U.S. Bureau of Mines produced similar results (.
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e: Low-rank coals were found to be so reactive that, at a reaction
Dat temperature of 430° C, high hydrogen pressure was required to pre
on vent repolymerization of reactive fragments to coke. More recent
ati studies have shown that the product from the liquefaction of a
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bli Utah sub-bituminous coal with hydrogen donor solvent (5) contains
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ous coal.
Although the literature suggests that the complexity of hydro
carbon groups in coal and coal liquefaction products can differ
substantially with the rank of the coal, specific data are limited
and sometimes appear to be contradictory. A recent report on the
comparison of solvent-refined lignite and solvent-refined sub-
bituminous and bituminous coals (6) indicates hardly any difference
among the products in terms of gross combustion analysis; acid and
basic titres; molecular weight; and nuclear-magnetic resonance,
ultraviolet, and electron-spin-resonance spectra. Only the nitro
gen content of the coal was reflected in the solvent-refined pro
ducts. However, in another recent study of a lignite, a bitumin
ous coal, and an anthracite coal, analysis of the organic compounds
trapped in the coals and contained in the products of selective
This chapter not subject to U.S. copyright.
Published 1981 American Chemical Society
In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.
2 UPGRADING COAL LIQUIDS
oxidation indicated an increased condensation of aromatic rings
with increasing rank (_7) . Analysis was performed by gas chrom
atography/ time-of-flight mass spectrometry and high-resolution
mass spectrometry. Furthermore, an extensive, detailed study
revealed compositional differences in the pyridine extracts of
three coals of different rank and also in their liquefaction
products produced by the Synthoil process (8). For example,
larger quantities of saturates and higher percentages of lower
ring-number saturate compound types were observed in the two
higher rank coal extracts. However, the ring distributions of the
aromatic fractions from the coal extracts indicated slightly higher
average ring numbers for the higher rank coals.
Similar results were obtained in a study characterizing liquid
products obtained from six coals of different rank by treatment of
1 the coals with NaOH-alcohol for 1 hour at 300° to 350° C (9).
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0 Characterization by elemental analysis, molecular-weight determin
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1 gave simpler products with primarily two-ring, tetralin-type nuclei
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19 coals which yielded products with five to six rings, about two of
k- which were naphthenic. Similarly, in Japanese studies of pyridine
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1 indicated more condensed aromatic rings with less substitution and
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1 shorter aliphatic chains in the higher-rank-coal extracts. Ex
oi: tracts from bituminous coals contained an average of four or five
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98 length, whereas a lignite extract had an average of one or two
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0, aromatic rings with seven- or eight-carbon, aliphatic side chains.
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e Finally, a study using carbon-13 NMR to characterize a hard-coal-tar
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u pitch and a brown-coal-tar pitch indicated a predominance of fused-
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on results for the brown-coal-tar pitch indicated primarily long,
ati straight-chain aliphatics estimated at 25 to 40 carbon atoms in
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P The coal liquids characterized at the Bartlesville Energy
Technology Center previous to this study have come from different
projects in which the primary objective was the development of a
specific process. This precluded a systematic study of the re
lationship of coal rank to coal liquid composition, which is the
objective of this study.
Eight coal liquids prepared from six coals (1,2) of widely
differing rank were characterized by procedures previously de
veloped for petroleum (12^,13,14) and by ASTM methods. The liquids
were prepared and upgraded by hydrogenation in a batch autoclave
under conditions intended to minimize cracking of the hydrocarbons
(especially those of cyclic and aromatic structure) and yet pro
duce most of the liquid hydrocarbons potentially obtainable from
a given coal. The extent of the hydrogenation/hydrogenolysis
(henceforth referred to as hydrogenation) of the raw coal liquids
In Upgrading Coal Liquids; Sullivan, R.;
ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1981.