TITLE: Highly dispersed catalysts for coal liquefaction. Quarterly report No. 5, August 23, 1992--November 22, 1992.

AUTHOR: A. S. Hirschon;   R. B. Wilson.

INST.  AUTHOR: SRI International, Menlo Park, CA.

SPONSOR: Department of Energy, Washington, DC.

LANGUAGE: English

PUB.  TYPE: Technical Report

PUB.  COUNTRY: United States

SOURCE: Department of Energy [DE],  2 Dec 92,  13p.

NTIS ORDER NO.: DE93011449INW

ABSTRACT:

The objectives of this project are to study the effect of pretreatment methods on the two-stage liquefaction process. In particular, the effects of dispersed catalysts and carbon monoxide atmospheres on a coal liquefaction process. The project is divided into three technical tasks.  Task 1 and 2 deal with the analyses and liquefaction experiments, respectively, whereas Task 3 deals with the economic impact of utilizing the pretreatment methods. This quarter we concentrated on Tasks 1 and 2, which are summarized. In this support task, the fractionated products from the coal liquefaction experiments conducted in Task 2 were analyzed for C, H, and N content. A very low H/C ratio for these products was found, and is most likely due to the low H/C ratio of the Black Thunder recycle solvent used in these liquefaction experiments. Also, during this quarter an on-line gas chromatograph was integrated into the autoclave system. We also conducted some experiments to determine the ease of activation of potential coal liquefaction catalysts. For these experiments the technique of NO chemisorption was used to determine the active catalytic MoS(sub 2) sites on coals impregnated with organometallic Mo precursors. We found that these organometallic Mo clusters easily activated to MoS(sub 2) sites. We continued our base-line screening experiments in the 300 mL autoclaves. Last quarter iron oxide and iron carbonyl catalysts were compared using an atmosphere of hydrogen with 3% H(sub 2)S. This quarter we included a comparison of liquefaction with iron oxide where we added an additional atmosphere of 20% carbon monoxide and found that this addition increased the conversion yields to soluble products. All of the carbon monoxide was accounted for as either unconverted carbon monoxide or as carbon dioxide. No evidence of conversion of the carbon monoxide to methane or Fischer-Tropsch type reactions were observed.

REPORT  NUMBER: DOE/PC/91039-T5

CONTRACT  NUMBER: AC22-91PC91039