More Japan Developments

 

Role of Water in Hydrogenation of Coal without Catalyst Addition

Yoshiharu Yoneyama, Makoto Okamura, Kanako Morinaga, and Noritatsu Tsubaki

Department of Material Science System Engineering and Life Science, Faculty of Engineering, Toyama University, 3190 Gofuku, Toyama, 930-8555, Japan

 
As with some other foreign references we've cited, the nature of the translation contributes to some difficulty in understanding the points. But, there is only one we wish to emphasize, aside from, again, this being just more evidence that coal-to-liquid technology is quite real, and undergoing assertive technical development throughout the industrialized world, whether our own, US, governing body and power structure would want us knowing it, or not.
 
Herein is more confirmation that, to state things generally, iron can catalyze coal-to-liquid conversion; and, sulfur, in some experiments, has been shown to enhance the efficiencies of some coal conversion processes. 
 
Fortuitously, pyrite, a relatively common mineral often found in coal, is, chemically, Iron Sulfide. And, we think, the purpose of this Japanese exercise in coal hydrogenation without catalyst addition was to demonstrate the ability of coal that contains pyrite to "self-catalyze" it's own liquefaction.    
 
As follows:
 
"Abstract

Several coals, including Argonne Premium coal, were noncatalytically hydrogenated with or without water addition at 673 K to investigate the effect of added water on coal conversion. For comparison, similar experiments in nitrogen or undecane (n-C11) were also carried out, as critical temperature of n-C11 is similar to that of water. In nitrogen or hydrogen atmosphere, added water promoted coal conversions. But adding n-C11 did not change or decreased the conversions. Especially added n-C11 inhibited coal conversions in nitrogen for higher-rank coal. The conversion of coals, using nitrogen and water, increased with increasing carbon content of coals. On the other hand, while hydrogen and water were used, there existed no clear relationship between the coal conversion and carbon content of coals. Under pressurized hydrogen, the coals containing larger amount of pyrite gave significantly large conversions. There existed synergistic effect between hydrogen and water on the conversions of coals, and the effect was more obvious for the coals containing larger amount of pyrite. These results suggested that pyrite in coals acted as the catalyst and played an important role in synergistic effect between hydrogen and water on the conversion of coal."

So, without attempting to elaborate or explain, it seems that iron and sulfur can promote the conversion of coal to liquid hydrocarbons, and in doing so can use a relatively common and inexpensive substance, i.e., water, to help things along.he Miner