99/00211 Direct coal liquefaction at HTI using dispersed slurry catalyst

Abstract

The US Department of Energy (DOE) Direct Coal Liquefaction effort, in which Hydrocarbon Technologies, Inc. (HTI) is a major participant, is an integral part of the effort to meet the US National Energy Strategy goal of relying more on indigenous sources of energy. This is also very applicable to the China situation where there is a need to use the abundant coal, and organic waste resources present in China to produce cost-effective fuels that will meet environmental goals of high efficiency with neutral consequences on air, water and ground status. Located at HTI`s Research and Development Center in Lawrenceville, New Jersey are several pilot scale continuous flow operating units to study, develop and demonstrate direct coal liquefaction and hydrocracking. These units include two two-stage, 50 Kg/day process evaluation units, one 3/4 ton/day process confirmation unit and a 5 ton/day process development unit. Each of these units are adaptable for operation as fluidized (ebullated) beds or fully backmixed slurry catalyst reactor units. These units are completely integrated to provide feed preparation and handling, preheating, reaction, vapor/liquid separation, on-line hydrotreating, product fractionation, bottoms recycling and solid removal. These units have not only been used in the processing of coal, but also inmore » the upgrading of heavy oil, tar sand bitumen, shale oil, waste tires, plastics, lignin and other organic municipal and industrial wastes. HTI has developed an advanced direct liquefaction process, HTI Coal Process, that produces clean transportation fuels and chemicals at a US cost of less than $30/bbl., equivalent crude oil price, at a grass roots facility. This process is based on the use of an HTI iron based catalyst, GelCat, with backmixed reactors, a close-coupled hydrotreater and interstage gas/liquid separation. Coal conversion, distillate yields and product qualities are comparable to that seen with a supported catalyst reactor system. The process is continuous, isothermal and free of solids accumulation with all coal ranks tested. Under the auspices of the US DOE, HTI has developed multi-stage liquefaction processes based on both supported and dispersed catalysts. The supported catalyst configuration involves the use of a three-phase ebullated bed reactor in which the supported catalyst is maintained at a random (fluidization) stage by re-circulating a relatively large quantity of catalyst-gas-free process fluid collected from the top of the reactor.« less