H-Coal pilot plant

In 1976, Ashland Oil (Ashland Synthetic Fuels, Inc.) was awarded the prime contract to construct a 540 t/d H-coal pilot plant adjacent to its refinery at Cadettsburg, Kentucky, by an industry—government underwriting consortium. Construction was completed in 1980 (112). The pilot-plant operation ended in early 1983. 

In 1979, because of a lack of large samples, boiler fuel test programs will be limited to small scale equipment. However, in 1980, large samples of liquids in the 5,000-10,000 barrel range should become availabel from the H-Coal pilot plant at Catlettsburg, Kentucky and the Exxon Donor Solvent process at Baytown, Texas. It would be preferable to run a number of tests utilizing different utility sites and types of electric generation... 

H-COAL PILOT PLANT OBJECTIVES 0 DEMONSTRATE MECHANICAL OPERABILITY 0 PROVIDE QUANTITIES OF PRODUCTS 0 VERIFY YIELDS 0 PROVIDE SCALE-UP DATA 0 COLLECT ENGINEERING DATA... 

Holmes, D. F., Jr., Mitchell, J., and Farthing, S., A Final Report of Kentucky s Role in the H-Coal Pilot Plant Project, Kentucky Energy Cabinet (Aug. 1983). 

H. E. Lewis, W. H. Weber, G. B. Usnick, W. R. Hollenbach and W. W. Hooks, "Operation of Solvent Refined Coal Pilot Plant at Wilsonville, Alabama", Annual Report, 1977, Catalytic, Inc., Wilsonville, Alabama, Report FE-2270-31. 

H. Roberts (South African Coal, Oil, and Gas Corp.) May I say that for the pilot plant we used a reciprocating compressor which would operate only at near ambient temperature. So we simulated the operation of the hot recycle compressor by adding high pressure steam on the delivery side of the reciprocating compressor. We did not use a hot recycle compressor in the pilot plant. 

Figure 17-46 shows such a performance curve for the collection of coal fly ash by a pilot-plant venturi scrubber (Raben "Use of Scrubbers for Control of Emissions from Power Boilers, United States-U.S.S.R. Symposium on Control of Fine-Particulate Emissions from Industrial Sources, San Francisco, 1974). The scatter in the data reflects not merely experimental errors but actual variations in the particle-size characteristics of the dust. Because the characteristics of an industrial dust vary with time, the scrubber performance curve necessarily must represent an average material, and the scatter in the data is frequently greater than is shown in Fig. 17-46. For best definition, the curve should cover as wide a range of contacting power as possible. Obtaining the data thus requires pilot-plant equipment with the flexibility to operate over a wide range of conditions. Because scrubber performance is not greatly affected by the size of the unit, it is feasible to conduct the tests with a unit handling no more than 170 m3/h (100 ftVmin) of gas.

A semi-industrial pilot plant has been developed in which air-borne ultrasound has been applied to the reduction of particle emissions in coal combustion fumes [62]. The installation basically consists of an acoustic agglomeration chamber with a rectangular cross-section, driven by four high-power and highly directional acoustic transducers operating at 10 and/or 20 kHz, and an electrostatic precipitator (ESP). In the experiments, a fluidised bed coal combustor was used as fume generator with fume flow rates up to about 2000 m /h, gas temperatures of about 150 °C. and mass concentrations in the range 1-5 gm. The acoustic filter reduced fine particle emissions by about 40 %. 

In the present chapter, results are presented from a study of the refining steps needed to produce distillate fuels from H-Coal liquids. The approach has been similar to that used in the SRC-II work described in the previous chapter analyze the starting material, choose reasonable processing steps, make appropriate pilot plant tests, and analyze the products. 

The Illinois H-Coal and SRC-II syncrudes contain large amounts of chloride, 32 parts per million (ppm) and 50 ppm, respectively. The Wyodak H-Coal syncrude contains only 3 ppm. Because the exit line from the pilot plants which processed the SRC-II syncrude occasionally plugged with ammonium chloride, we water washed the Illinois H-Coal syncrude prior to hydrotreating. It is our understanding that chloride will be removed by water washing at a commercial coal liquefaction facility. 

Two proprietary Chevron catalysts were used in different pilot plant simulations of the syncrude hydrotreater ICR 106 and ICR 113. The ICR 106 catalyst contains nickel, tungsten, silica, and alumina and the ICR 113 catalyst contains nickel, molybdenum, silica, and alumina. An equal volume of inert, nonporous alumina was placed on top of the catalysts. This alumina served as a preheating zone. These catalysts operated satisfactorily for over one-half year (4000 hours) with the Illinois H-Coal syncrude. 

Reagents and Materials. Light recycle oil (LRO) and Western Kentucky 9/14 coal were obtained from the Wilsonville SRC Pilot Plant, operated by Southern Company Services, Inc. The LRO contains 0.26% sulfur, and the Western Kentucky 9/14 coal is analyzed to be 67% C, 4.9% H, 3.10% S, and 12% mineral matter. The coal was dried overnight at 100°C and 25 inches Hg vacuum before use. 

Both FLEXICOKING and partial oxidation are commercial processes for petroleum residue (12,13). In addition, partial oxidation has been utilized to generate Synthesis gas with coal as a feed (14,15). Coal liquefaction bottoms have been processed in small pilot units in recent studies including Exxon s 2 B/D FLEXICOKING pilot plant (3) and Texaco s 12 T/D partial oxidation unit (16). Studies in Exxon s unit have included EDS bottoms from Illinois and Wyoming coals while SRC-I, SRC-II, H-Coal and... 

Several processes have been developed for coal liquefaction. Large-scale pilot plants have been in operation for the solvent-refining coal (SRC) process, and a pilot plant is being constructed for the H-Coal process, which is a direct catalytic process. Construction of demonstration plants is under consideration. The coal liquids produced from the current processes contain large amounts of residual fuels. They probably will be used initially as boiler fuels for stationary power plants. However, the nitrogen content of coal liquids is much higher than the petroleum residual fuels. The sulfur contents of coal liquids can vary considerably they depend on the type of coal and the liquefaction process used. Current coal liquefaction processes are capable of produc-... 

Among the arc plasmas, those of Hoeckst and Huls employ hydrogen in a system supplied with hydrocarbons ranging from methane to crude oil The acetylene and ethylene yield is as high as 80 per cent weight with an H, to CH4 molar ratio of 0.5. Huls has developed an industrial pilot plant of this type in Marl, in West Germany, which will employ coal. 

This molten salt gasification process is the basis for the Rockwell International molten salt coal gasification process. A 900-kg-h l (1 ton/h) process development unit pilot plant has been built and is being tested under contract from the Department of Energy. This plant includes the gasifier and a complete sodium carbonate recovery and regeneration system. 

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