Marathon chooses contractors

Abstract

This chapter describes the deactivation and carbon deposition in the very early part of the catalyst life during hydrocracking of coal-derived liquids. It presents the results collected over a 40 h run on a fixed bed hydrocracker, where the feed was modified by solvent precipitation and compared with those collected during a previous run using a standard feed material. The feed material that was modified by precipitation of high molecular weight material was prepared by heating two parts of filtered extract solution with one part of toluene in a 2 L autoclave at 130°C for 20 min. The resulting mixture was filtered and stored in the hydrocracker feed vessel at 150°C. The liquid product from the reactor was collected every 4–5 h and, together with the feed extract solution, was analyzed for insolubles of THF, toluene, and pentane. The samples were dissolved in an excess of solvent near its boiling point and filtered, under suction, through a Whatman GF/C filter pad. For the residue material, the results are similar except that there is a definite trend with catalyst age for the base run that is not present in the modified feed run.