Advanced liquefaction processes research

Recent activities at PETC have been directed toward three areas: examining the effect of solvent quality/catalyst activity to enable operation at lower pressures, coal/oil coprocessing with dispersed catalysts, and coal/waste coprocessing. Previous microautoclave and batch testing has explored coal liquefaction activity at hydrogen pressures below 2,500 psig. Efforts in the current year have extended the work to continuous operations in a 1-liter unit at pressures of 2,000 and 1,500 psig. The use of FCC decant oil and Hondo Resid will be discussed. Previous coal/oil coprocessing efforts were expanded to include 5 and 10% coal cases. Testing of dispersed catalysts was extended to the petroleum resid-only system. Previous coal/waste coprocessing tests utilized a simulated waste plastic mixture to examine the effect of composition on slurry rheological properties and reactor temperature on yields. Actual waste plastics are being tested in the coal/waste coprocessing activity.