The effects of iron sulphide surface area variations on coal liquefaction

✍ Scribed by Frances V. Stohl

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1983
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 590 KB
• Volume: 62
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-2361
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-2361(83)90266-1

✦ Synopsis

The purpose of this work was to determine the effects of surface area variations of iron sulphides on coal liquefaction. Several iron sulphides were synthesized including pyrites (Fe!&) with 46.6 wt% Fe, pyrrhotites (Fe,.,S) with -60 wt% Fe and irortsulphur compounds of unknown composition. Surface areas of the synthetic pyrites varied from 2 to > 10 m2 g-', pyrrhotite surface areas were 6 and 10 m* g-', and the surface areas of the iron-sulphurcompounds were 40 and 80 m* g-'. These iron sulphides were tested for catalytic activity in tubing reactor runs with West Virginia Blacksville no. 2 coal and SRC-II heavy distillate. All these sulphides showed catalytic effects as compared to runs with only coal and solvent, although the effects were not as large as those obtained with a cobalt-molybdenum on alumina catalyst. Largedifferences in surfaceareas before reactortesting did not causeanysignificant differences in conversion. The results from an additional series of tubing reactor runs, which was carried out to determine how iron sulphide surface areas change during liquefaction, showed that the surface areas were drastically changed during the two-minute heat-up of the reactor. Robena pyrite with a surface area of 2.0 m'g-' and the irortsulphurcompound with a surface area of 80 m2 g-' yielded iron sulphides with surface areas of 5.2 and 10.8 m2 g-' after a two-minute heat-up to 425°C and subsequent oneminute quench.