Objective THE AIMD OF THIS PROJECT ARE TWO FOLD: FIRSTLY, TO ESTABLISH AND OPTIMISE THE CONDITIONS REQUIRED FOR THE SIMULTANEOUS UPGRADING OF COAL-DERIVED AND PETROLEUM DISTILLATES AND, SECONDLY, TO EVALUATE THE BENEFITS OF USING A DEEPLY CLEANED COAL AS THE FEED TO BRITISH COAL'S LIQUID SOLVENT EXTRACTION PROCESS. The project involved 2 major objectives. The first was to quantify the effects of cleaning the coal feed on the yield patterns and processing rates of the liquid solvent extraction (LSE) direct coal liquefaction process. The second was to obtain information on the effect of the corefining of coal derived distillates and petroleum distillates on premium transport fuels.In the clean coal programme, it was concluded that there may be small but significant advantages in processing only the clean fraction and routing the middlings to utilities such as power generation. The use of coals at the low end of the bituminous coal rank range also appear attractive, although the processing of all coals other than anthracites remains technically feasible.The results of the corefining programme suggest that coreforming, the simultaneous processing of petroleum and coal derived naphthas, may increase reformate yields at a given RON when compared with the alternative of reforming separately and then blending. In addition, laboratory engine tests indicate that a gasoline meeting current United Kingdom specifications could be produced from coal derived naphtha by reforming, using only butane as an external blending component.THE SIMULTANEOUS UPGRADING ASPECT OF THE WORK INVOLVES A COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMME WITH RUHRKOHLE OEL UND GAS GMBH (CONTRACT EN3V005300). RUHRKOHLE WILL PROVIDE SAMPLES OF TWO HYDROGENATED LOHLEOEL LIGHT DISTILLATES AND ONE LIGHT DISTILLATE OBTAINED BY HYDROCRACKING A KOHLEOEL MID-DISTILLATE AT SEVERE CONDITIONS. THESE WILL FORM THE FEEDSTOCKS FOR A REFORMING PROGRAMME TO BE CARRIED OUT BY BRITISH COAL. EACH COAL DERIVED FEED WILL BE REFORMED ALONE AND AS BLENDS AT 20% AND 50% CONCENTRATION WITH A PETROLEUM NAPHTA. THE PETROLEUM NAPHTA WILL ALSO BE REFORMED ALONE, MAKING A TOTAL OF 10 REFORMER FEEDSTOCKS TO BE TESTED. IN THE COAL CLENAING PART OF THE PROGRAMME, A TOTAL OF SIC COALS WILL BE STUDIED. THE COALS WILL BE CLEANED BY THE TWO-STAGE "LARCODEMS" PROCESS, DEVELOPED BY BRITISH COAL. THIS PROCESS YIELDS A CLEAN COAL STREAM, CONTAINING 5 - 10% MINERAL MATTER, A "MIDDLINGS" STREAM CONTAINING 20 - 30% MINERAL MATTER AND A REJECT STREAM WHICH IS ALMOST WHOLLY MINERAL MATTER. THE CLEAN COAL STREAM IS ALSO RELATIVELY DEPLETED OF THE INERT COAL MACERALS, WHICH ARE CONCENTRATED IN THE MIDDLINGS. THE EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAMME WILL DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF COAL MINERAL MATTER ON THE EXTRACTION AND FILTRATION STEPS OF THE LIQUID SOLVENT EXTRACTION PROCESS. THE EFFECTS OF COAL RANK AND MACERAL COMPOSITION ON THE REACTIVITY OF THE FEED TO THE HYDROCRACKING STEP WILL ALSO BE EVALUATED. OVERALL PROCESS MASS BALANCES AND YIELD STRUCTURES WILL BE CALCULATED FOR ALL SIX COALS. Fields of science engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsliquid fuelsengineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energycoalengineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energypetroleum Programme(s) FP1-ENNONUC 3C - Research and development programme (EEC) in the field of Non-Nuclear Energy, 1985-1988 Topic(s) Data not available Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator British Coal plc EU contribution No data Address Hobart House Grosvenor Place SW1X 7AE London United Kingdom See on map Total cost No data
