"Imtiaz Ahmad, Mohammad Arsala Khan, Mohammad Shakirullah, Mohammad Ishaq, Rashid Ahmad, Habib ur Rehman and Saeed ur Rehman
Department of Chemical Engineering, Yanbu Industrial College, Yanbu Al Sinayah, Saudi Arabia
Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Islamabad, Pakistan
The influence of a group of metal oxide, hydroxide and chloride catalysts on the yields of liquefied products has been identified. The results of hydrogenation experiments performed with varying coal to catalyst ratio for a slurry of lignite coal in toluene demonstrated that metal loadings even as low as 1% proved effective for enhancement of yields. Among the catalysts employed, halide catalysts proved to be the most effective in terms of high yields of desirable liquefied products."
Note that "halide" catalysts are identified as being most effective. Could something as common as table salt be a key to the more profitable and more productive conversion of coal into liquid fuels?
We find it interesting that, as we have discovered in other coal-to-liquid research efforts in other places, representatives from the Oil Cartel nations, as in the Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, College researchers noted above, have insinuated themselves into coal liquefaction research efforts around the world. Just keeping their friends close, but their enemies closer, we suppose.