Process for producing hydrogen-enriched hydrocarbonaceous products from coal
As we have been documenting, Consolidation Coal Company pursued the development of technologies for the hydrogenation and liquefaction of Coal throughout the decades of the 1960's and 1970's.
Herein is yet another example of their refinement of Coal conversion technology, detailing the specifics of how various types of inert contaminants can be removed from Coal during the liquefaction process, resulting in a liquid product better-suited for further refining into hydrocarbon fuels.
Comment follows excerpts from:
"US Patent 3,232,861 - Producing Hydrogen-Enriched Hydrocarbonaceous Products from Coal
Date: February, 1966
Inventor: Everett Gorin, Pittsburgh
Assignee: Consolidation Coal Company, Pittsburgh
Abstract: This invention relates to an improved process for producing hydrogen-enriched hydrocarbons from coal. More particularly, this invention relates to a combination process for removing ash, i.e., metallic contaminants and the like, from ash-containing coal extract and from catalysts which have been deactivated during catalytic hydrogenation of ash-containing coal extract. Still more particularly, this invention relates to a process for removing particular ash components from ash-containing coal extract.
As described (in several of Gorin's other specified patents and co-pending patent applications) valuable liquid products such as gasoline may be derived from coal (via solvent extraction and subsequent refining).
The extract obtained by the solvent extraction of coal, after being separated from the undissolved coal residue, contains a minute, unfilterable amount of metallic contaminants, commonly referred to as ash. If this ash is not removed from the coal extract ... the ash (deposits) on the catalyst in the hydrogenation zone thereby causing a more rapid decrease in the activity of the catalyst ... .
Accordingly, the primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved process for overcoming the afore-mentioned ash deposition problem such that hydrogen-enriched hydrocarbonaceous products may be obtained more economically from ash-containing coal extracts."
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We close our excerpts here. The full disclosure is lengthy and detailed, and describes inter-related technologies, whereby water-soluble and insoluble metallic ash can be removed from Coal liquids, both before and after hydrogenation. Methods include the use of water, to dissolve soluble salts from Coal extract; and, as we have documented from other sources, an integrated means of abrading the surfaces of catalyst particles, to keep them clean and active.
It is, in any case, further example of how advanced, almost half a century ago, the technologies for converting our abundant domestic Coal, cleanly and efficiently, into the liquid fuels we need, had become.
It's far, far past time at least some of those technologies were implemented, and reduced to commercial practice for the benefit of US Coal Country; for the benefit of the entire United States of America.
