The Bergius Process

In the plant, a slurry of coal and heavy oil was hydrogenated using about 4 wt% luxmasse as the catalyst. Luxmasse, which is rich in iron with some titania, is the residue from bauxite after almnina extraction. Hydrogenation conditions were in the range 450°-480 C and 100-150 atm of hydrogen, yielding 40-50 wt% of hquid hydrocarbons, depending on the type of feed used. Residual solids and heavy oils could be recycled. 

Bergius cerlairdy recognised the relationship between his work and the catalytic hydrogenation of heavy cmde oil fractions, relative to the newly introduced thermal cracking. Thermal cracking of cmde oil fractions was first rrsed in refineries aroimd 1911-1912 to increase the yield of gasoline. By about 1924 the 

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In the 1920 s, Schneider and other Farben scientists invented a way to use the Bergius process on a large scale. Their new process was called "hydrogenation." This development of "hydrogenation" was due largely to the vision of Carl Bosch, Fritz ter Meer, Carl Krauch, and Christian Schneider. Schneider testified ... 

IG-Hydrogenation An advanced version of the Bergius process in which the initial product of coal gasification is refined by centrifugation and the slurry residue is carbonized. 

This method, which is known as the Bergius process, was put into commercial operation in 1913 at Hanover. It has two grreat advantages—a. very pure hydrogen is produced, and since it is under great pressure, it can be... 

Germany demonstrated commercial-scale operation of DCL during World War II, employing the Bergius process, which they had developed. After World War II, the United States constructed a 200-300 bbl/day DCL plant at Louisiana, Missouri, based on the German technology. This plant was operated by the Bureau of Mines from 1949 to 1954. However, as the extent of petroleum deposits in the Middle East and other locations became apparent and fears of an oil shortage subsided, interest in DCL diminished. 

The first direct coal liquefaction process was developed and patented by Bergius from Germany in 1913 and, therefore, is often referred to as the Bergius process. The world s first industrial-scale direct coal liquefaction plant was built in Leuna, Germany, in 1927 with an annual fuel production of 10,0001. By 1939, Germany built 12 direct coal liquefaction plants with a combined annual fuel production of about 4.23 million metric tons, which supplied about 70% of the aviation fuel and 50% of the transportation fuel for German troops during World War II. 

The Germans used coal liquefaction on a commercial scale from 1930 to the end of the second World War. They found that a catalyst could enhance liquid yields and help remove heteroatoms. The Bergius process used an iron oxide-aluminum catalyst at a 2-3% by coal weight concentration. 

In recent years, it has been realized that mineral matter plays an important role in coal liquefaction (9-11), similar to the role of the added catalyst in the Bergius process. Several experimental techniques have been used to study the effects of minerals on coal liquefaction and to identify the specific catalytic phase (12). Most studies (12-14) strongly imply that the iron sulfides are the roost active species, and the other minerals appear to have little effect on enhancement of liquid yield or quality. 

The Fischer-Tropsch process synthesizes various hydrocarbons from carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The Bergius process, which breaks down coal into a synthetic crude oil with the help of hydrogen and a catalyst, enabled Nazi Germany to produce large amounts of synthetic aviation gasoline. 

The hydroliquefaction of coal in the Bergius process is not a simple reaction or process in fact, it involves a series of organometallic transformation, such as insertion, migration, and reductive elimination. Therefore, only a small part of the reaction scheme is displayed here to show a possible conversion. 

Other references related to the Bergius process are cited in the literature. ... 

Methods of coal liquefaction have been available since the beginning of the twentieth century but the cost has initiated searches for more effective new processes. For example, in the Bergius process for direct coal liquefaction, the coal is treated with hydrogen under pressure at 450°C (840°F) in the presence of a solvent and an iron oxide catalyst. The activity of this catalyst is low, however, because the solid iron oxide cannot enter the macromolecular network structure of the insoluble coal. Semianthracite coal, which only contains a small amount of volatile components, cannot be converted by this process. 

The Bergius process (Storch, 1945), like the Pott-Broche process, is more of historical interest than current commercial interest but it was a process that literally paved the way for the development of catalytic liquefaction of coal. 

The Bergius process was one of the early processes for the production of liquid fuels from coal. In the process, lignite or subbituminous coal is finely ground and mixed with heavy oil recycled from the process. Catalyst is typically added to the mixture and the mixture is pumped into a reactor. The reaction occurs between 400°C and 500°C under a pressure of hydrogen and produces heavy oil, middle oil, gasoline, and gas ... 

Figure 3.19 shows the flow diagram for a coal-hydrogenation plant using an advanced version of the Bergius process (/G-hydrogenation process). 

German industrial chemist. Bergius worked with Hermann Nemst at Berlin and Fritz Haber at Karlsruhe, where he became interested in high-pressure chemical reactions. He is noted for his development of the BERGIUS PROCESS. He shared the Nobel Prize for chemistry with Carl Bosch in 1931. 

Direct Liquefaction Process in which coal is subjected to hydrogenation under high pressure and at a high temperature, thereby converting it directly into a synthetic liquid fuel also known as the Bergius process. 

The first process was studied by Berthelot in 1867 and was further developed in Germany by Bergius in 1910. The early Bergius process involved the reaction of H2 under atmospheric pressure with pulverized coal suspended in an oil heated to about 450°C in the presence of a catalyst such as stannous formate or Mo. The liquid oil product is separated from the solid residue and processed as ordinary crude oil. Modem developments in this coal liquefaction approach include (1) Exxon Donner Solvent (EDS) process, (2) the HRI H-Coal process, and (3) the Gulf Solvent Refined Coal SRC-II process. The major improvement of these processes over the Bergius process is in the catalyst used, allowing for milder reaction conditions. 

First industrial plant for direct hydrolysis of fuel from coal at 70 MPa based on the Bergius process, whicdi was cJaimed at 1913. 

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