Hydrogen vitrinite concentrates

Studies initiated by the author in CSIRO (13) seek to throw light on the role of the various macerals by studying the conversion, under catalytic hydrogenation conditions, in Tetralin as vehicle, of maceral concentrates from a high volatile bituminous coal. Some preliminary results, given in Fig. 3, show conversions as almost complete for the hand picked vitrain (>90% vitrinite) from a high volatile bituminous coal (Liddell seam N.S.W., 83.6% carbon and 43% volatile matter both expressed on a dry ash-free basis). However, it is evident that the conversion of the whole coal increases rapidly with increase in hydrogen pressure (under otherwise similar conditions - batch autoclave, 4h. 400°C). 

H/C = atomic hydrogen-to-carbon ratio V = vitrinite content of coal VM volatile matter St = total sulfur TRM = total reactive macerals The adequacies of these reactivity correlations, expressed as a percentage of the total variation in the data set explained by the model, were 80.0%, 79.2%, and 47.5% respectively. A later paper in the series (21) concentrated on the development of reactivity correlations for a set of 26 high volatile bituminous coals with high sulfur contents, and extended the models previously developed in include analyses of the liquefaction products and coal structural features. These structural features included the usual... 

The steric considerations proposed above to account for the differing thermodynamic stabilities of the various DMN and MP isomers can also be applied to methyldibenzothiophene (MDBT) isomers, as shown in Fig. 5.37. The least stable isomer appears to be 1MDBT, in which the methyl-group hydrogens are close to the valency electron pairs of the sulphur atom. The relative concentrations of this isomer are low above a vitrinite reflectance of c.0.8% R. ... 

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