Coal liquefaction product analysis, Vol.1

Abstract

Part I contains a partial literature survey of a selection of methods available to evaluate coal liquefaction products. In part II, three methods - fractional distillation, selective solvent extraction, and column chromatography - were compared for the evaluation of products obtained from three coals sampled in the Denman-Scone coal drilling programme. Fractional distillation has more direct application to steady state continuous reactor processes. For batch autoclave studies, the main advantage is that it provides a rapid separation on boiling points for comparison with petroleum fractions. Disadvantages include loss through co-distillation of products with solvent, and decomposition or polymerization of extract through prolonged heating during distillation. Selective solvent extraction provided separation into oil, asphaltene, preasphaltene and insoluble fractions. It was preferable to separate initially into a combined oil plus asphaltene component than to use a fully sequential separation. The method was preferred to distillation for batch autoclave studies if one method has to be selected.