Coal liquefaction process streams characterization and evaluation: The preliminary evaluation of the kinetics of coal liquefaction distillation resid conversion

摘要

This study evaluated the use of a novel laboratory-scale batch reactor, designed by the University of Delaware, to study the kinetics of coal liquefaction resid reactivity. The short time batch reactor (STBR) is capable of conducting reactions at temperatures up to 450C and pressures up to 2500 psi at well-defined reaction times from a few seconds to 30 min or longer. Sixty experiments were conducted with the STBR in this project. The products of the resid/tetralin/hydrogen reaction were separated by solubility, and several analytical procedures were used to evaluate the reaction products, including thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Changes were monitored in the boiling ranges of the products, as a function of process conditions (time, temperature, and tetralin donor solvent-to-resid ratio), with and without catalysts. Two distillation resid samples were studied; Sample 1 is the resid of the second stage product stream from Wilsonville Run 259 which used Pittsburgh seam coal (Ireland mine) bituminous coal, and Sample 2 is the resid of the same streak from Wilsonville Run 260 which used Wyodak and Anderson (Black Thunder Mine) subbituminous coal. It was determined that the resid reactivity was different for the two samples studied. The results demonstrate that further development of this experimental method is warranted to empirically assess resid reactivity and to provide data for use in the construction of an empirical model of coal conversion in the direct liquefaction process.