Molecular catalytic coal liquid conversion: Quarterly progress report

Research work has concentrated on the two general tasks that were described in the original proposal. The first task concerns the development of molecular organometallic homogeneous catalysts that can be used in the hydrogenation of coal liquids. The second task concerns non-metallic organic bases which can activate dihydrogen for arene hydrogenation, and that can be used in the conversion of coal liquids. In this Quarter, the great bulk of the efforts were expended on investigating the organic base-activated reactions of dihydrogen. The authors have proven that the reagents can effect the hydrogenation of two ring and other polycondensed aromatic hydrocarbons. Various strong organic bases were employed as the catalysts for hydrogenation of naphthalene. Several effective catalyst systems have been found for this purpose. The dependence of the reaction rates on the various factors such as temperature, hydrogen pressure, reaction time, solvents, etc. were thoroughly investigated. The substitution of dideuterium gas for dihydrogen gas in the catalytic reduction of naphthalene and anthracene has been found to provide important information concerning the simultaneous D-H exchange reactions that occur during the course of the reduction reactions. In addition, work on the development of molecular organometallic homogeneous catalysts was also done. The authors have prepared two organometallic compounds: naphthalenemolybdenum tricarbonyl and 1-methylnaphthalenemolybdenum tricarbonyl to extend the work that was begun on organometallic compounds in the last Quarter