Relationship between the properties of iron sulfides and their catalytic activity

Iron sulfides, such as pyrite, are known catalysts in coal liquefaction and produce significant increases in both conversion and distillate (850 F/sup -/) yield. The main objective of this work is to increase the catalytic activity of iron sulfides by systematically changing the following properties: composition, source, particle size, surface area, morphology and defect level. Several iron sulfides have been synthesized including pyrite (FeS/sub 2/) with 46.6 wt % Fe, pyrrhotite (Fe/sub 1-x/S) with about 60 wt % Fe and mackinawite (Fe/sub 9/S/sub 8/) with 66.2 wt % Fe. The source variations have included commercial material and minerals. The pyrite particle sizes ranged from -350 to -5..mu..m, the pyrite surface areas varied from 2 to >10 m/sup 2//g, the mackinawite surface areas ranged from 40 to 80 m/sup 2//g, and pyrite morphologies included massive material and a concentrate of framboids from Iowa coal. Moessbauer studies of the pyrrhotites in coal liquefaction residues have shown that there is a direct correlation between conversion and the number of vacancies in the pyrrhotite. Pyrites with enhanced defect levels were prepared by explosively shock loading Robena pyrite at 15 GPa. All these materials have been tested in either tubing reactor or autoclave runs withmore » West Virginia Blacksville No. 2 coal and SRC-II heavy distillate (550/sup 0/F/sup +/). The runs were carried out at 425/sup 0/C, 500 psi H/sub 2/ (cold charge) for 30 minutes with a 7.5 wt % catalyst loading. All these materials have shown catalytic effects as compared to uncatalyzed thermal runs.« less