Download or read book "An Economic Process for Coal Liquefaction to Liquid Fuels" SBIR Phase II -- Final Scientific/Technical Report written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current commercial processes for direct coal liquefaction utilize expensive backmix-flow reactor system and conventional catalysts resulting in incomplete and retrogressive reactions that produce low distillate liquid yield and high gas yield, with high hydrogen consumption. The new process we have developed, which uses a less expensive reactor system and highly active special catalysts, resulted in high distillate liquid yield, low gas yield and low hydrogen consumption. The new reactor system using the special catalyst can be operated smoothly for direct catalytic coal liquefaction. Due to high hydrogenation and hydrocracking activities of the special catalysts, moderate temperatures and high residence time in each stage of the reactor system resulted in high distillate yield in the C4-650°F range with no 650°F product formed except for the remaining unconverted coal residue. The C4-650°F distillate is more valuable than the light petroleum crude. Since there is no 650°F+ liquid product, simple reforming and hydrotreating of the C4-650°F product will produce the commercial grade light liquid fuels. There is no need for further refinement using catalytic cracking process that is currently used in petroleum refining. The special catalysts prepared and used in the experimental runs had surface area between 40-155 m2/gm. The liquid distillate yield in the new process is>20 w% higher than that in the current commercial process. Coal conversion in the experimental runs was moderate, in the range of 88 - 94 w% maf-coal. Though coal conversion can be increased by adjustment in operating conditions, the purpose of limiting coal conversion to moderate amounts in the process was to use the remaining unconverted coal for hydrogen production by steam reforming. Hydrogen consumption was in the range of 4.0 - 6.0 w% maf-coal. A preliminary economic analysis of the new coal liquefaction process was carried out by comparing the design and costs of the current commercial plant of the Shenhua Corporation in Erdos, Inner Mongolia. The cost of producing synthetic crude oil from coal in the current commercial process was estimated to be $50.5 per barrel compared to the estimated cost of $41.7 per barrel in the new process. As mentioned earlier, the light distillate product in the new process is of higher quality and value than the C4-975°F product in the current commercial process adopted by the Shenhua Corporation. In sum, the new coal liquefaction process is superior and less capital intensive to current commercial process, and has a high potential for commercialization.