Advanced direct liquefaction concepts for PETC generic units. [Mainly, the effect of preteatment of coal with carbon monoxide and steam]

CAER/UK: Detail coal and starting solvents from Wilsonville were analyzed to develop the data necessary to conduct process studies in the CO Pretreatment and Catalyst Evaluation segment of this program. A comparison of the solvent separation analysis with the distillation/separation used at Wilsonville showed that the residual solvent components contained a large amount of residual pentane soluble products. The ashy resid contained 3% iron and 400 ppM molybdenum. Although the iron content in the distillate and deashed resid was much less, namely about 200 ppM., the molybdenum concentrations in these fractions were not significantly reduced over the concentration in the ashy resid, i.e., 200 ppM in each. The pretreatment of coal with CO/H{sub 2}O in the presence of NaOH and Na{sub 2}CO{sub 3} has been shown to give a product which is lower in oxygen content and higher in hydrogen content compared to the raw coal. The atomic H/C ratios of the H{sub 2}O-insolubles, THF insolubles and the PA+A fractions of the products-together with the hydrogen consumption data suggested that the raw coal has been substantially depolymerized and hydrogenated via the WGS reaction during the pretreatment process. The extensive amount of molecular reconstruction that has occurred in the solid product was evident from the ease of solubilization of the product into pyridine. The result of the pretreatment process is a product which is highly reactive under hydroliquefaction conditions at 400{degrees}C. Reaction rates seem to be much faster than the raw coal, especially at shorter reaction times, providing the opportunity for major reductions in plant vessel sizes, and preliminary data has led us to believe that better efficiency in hydrogen utilization is achieved