Studies related to the structure and reactivity of coals: 19. Structure and reactivity of international coals based on hydrogen/tetralin reactions

A suite of coals from several continents has been characterized and reacted under conditions similar to those used by us for a suite of Australian coals. The reactivity of these coals with hydrogen in tetralin at 405 °C correlated well with the atomic HC ratios of the coals and the correlation curve was similar to that for Australian coals. Analyses of the products of these reactions by a diverse range of techniques has established that the structure of New Zealand brown coals can be described in terms of a host-guest model which was applicable to the closely related Australian brown coals. The product distributions from reactions of the higher rank coals also showed similarities to those for the Australian coals.