Evaluation of West Virginia University's iron catalyst impregnated on coal

摘要

The objectives to evaluate and compare the activities/selectivities of fine-particle size catalysts being developed in the DOE/PETC Advanced Research (AR) Coal Liquefaction program by using standard coal liquefaction activity test procedures. Previously reported results have described the standard test procedure developed at Sandia to evaluate fine-particle size iron catalysts being developed in DOE/PETC's AR Coal Liquefaction Program and described the evaluation of several catalysts (commercially available pyrite, University of Pittsburgh's catalyst, Pacific Northwest Laboratories' catalyst) using these procedures. The test uses DECS-17 Blind Canyon Coal, phenanthrene as the reaction solvent, and a factorial experimental design that enables evaluation of a catalyst over ranges of temperature (350 to 400(degree)C), time (20 to 60 minutes), and catalyst loading (0 to 1 wt % on an as-received coal basis). Recent work has focused on the evaluation of West Virginia University's iron catalyst that WVU impregnated on DECS-17 Blind Canyon coal. Results showed good activity for this catalyst including the highest amount of 9,10-dihydrophenanthrene (13.2%) observed in a reaction product and a small but significant catalytic effect for heptane conversion (0.5%). Additional experiments are being performed to enable comparison with previously tested catalysts. Tetrahydrofuran insolubles from selected reactions have been sent to the University of Kentucky for Mossbauer characterization of the iron phases present.