Coal to Liquid

Hello yakobus

You are from the land of Oz, no doubt.

Perhaps you could put your location into your Profile, as that often assists with answering.

Whatever you do with coal, there is always going to be ash or glassy solids remaining after volatiles are driven off by heat and/or pressure.

The left-over waste can be used as part of the material used in footpath and light roadway forming material, if it is combined with cement.

If your source coal is Anthracite, with over 95% carbon, the ash/clay residue is minimal, but as far as I know, Anthracite is not commercially minable in Australia.

Advise further, please.

Kind Regards....

I understand from your reply that you are expert in coal to liquid technology. Do you have interest in cooperating with me for Indian market, there is good potential for supply technology, plant & Machinery.

Pls reply to my email: tpkapoor@hotmail.com

Regards

Kapoor

Hi mate,

I know the perfect answer to this one. Firstly, get a 20 litre jerry can of premuim unleaded petrol/gas, then show the jerry can to the coal. Throw coal into the fireplace and burn for heat/cooking. You then have a 20 litre jerry can full of premium fuel left afterwords. Easy! If it is diesel you need, then just replace PULP with Diesel.

We Aussies are a clever bunch.

Your problem is the ash or keeping the coal in suspension in the liquid? To obtain ash free combustion you need a high pressure lean burn furnace; that is it has to be very hot with high oxygen content. This won't work if there are non combustible contaminants in the solution

If your problem is keeping the coal in suspension in the oil, there are two obvious means. 1) continuous mechanical mixing or 2) Chemical suspension. A third method is to aerate the solution at high pressure, like a soda bottle. the bubbles tend to stick to the coal (in laymans terms) keeping it off the bottom. their are also some mew electrostatic processes been developed lately.

yakobus,

Follow this link http://www.silveradogreenfuel.com/ourfuel/process/ and you will find what these people are doing. I think this is a different process than you are wanting to use but it may stir your mind.

For those who don't want to follow the link, I'll explain briefly. They take what they call "low rank coal" and treat it with steam to get a liguid that can be used as an oil substitute for refining. They have an agreement with the State of Mississippi to build a demo plant. Could be real interesting.

What are you trying to do??? and why???

Coal comes in a multitude of froms and types.

Low grade coal is used in a pulverised form when it can be fluidised and then burnt at a jet like a gas! It has to be dry.

You'd be better off gasifying the coal (leaving the ash behind) and recondensing to liquid. Coal has a lot of ash - just ask any power plant engineer.

Dear Mag..

I had Gasified this Coal then Condensate it..I got Only Liquid..

But What is this Liquid I get ?

Coz this liquid is Unflammable..I mix this Liquid with some Chemical..then I burn it..

What I get are High Peak Temperature , Low Flash Point , High Calorific Value but some liquid remain after burning ..I think its water?

So What can u suggest to this gasification Process ? the Right temperature and Pressure?

Thanks

What temperature and pressure are you condensing this liquid at?

What you want to do is simply not possible. Even if it does not stay in the combustion chamber, it will be (illegally) blown out into the atmosphere....

Even burning fuel oil leaves residues that must be physically cleaned off from time to time.

Over relatively long peiods, even petrol and diesel leave residues.....coal leaves a lot of residue!!

There are two similar themes running now see "coal gasoline".

Coal is a complex mixtures and, unless burnt under controlled conditions, a lot of toxic rubbish is produced - such things as coal tar and creosote and variable amounts of ash. Coal can be subjected to destructive distillartion heating in closed retorts and collecting all the volatiles (Coal Gas production) carbon, or rather coke, is also produced which, depending upon is quality, is used for steel (& other) production. Because of the high dirt content low grade coal is more easily dried and pulverised to a fine dust when it can be burnt efficiently at a nozzle. In this way all the combustible matter is used and the fly ash discarded.

I still do not uderstand the reference to "meltdown" and "solution"

Good information in many of the responses to the question- but I don't think anyone has actually answered the question yakobus has asked. The insoluble portion that is left after liquifying the hydocarbons in coal is made up of mineral matter. Most of it will probably be clay. There will also probably be a significant amount of quartz. There is a multitude of other minerals depending on the location of the seam from which the coal is mined. There is no solvent that will dissolve, liquify, or decompose all the minerals present. No solvent, that is, that would not destroy your product and be extremely expensive and hazardous. The mineral matter in pulverized coal is going to be very small in particle size. The only way I can think of to remove it is with a series of high-pressure filter cake-type filtration units. I doubt this would be economical, however, because the filters would become plugged so quickly. Like Mag said in post #7, gasification avoids these pitfals.

Bill Morrow

If you are going to mix coal with a oil to be used as fuel, then you have to reduce its size to have a powder coal and put into suspension in the oil.

If you want to obtain a liquid fuel of coal, then you have to make a pyrolysis which yields coal tar and hydrocarbons gases which can be upgraded by hydrogenation or methanation to synthetic oil and fuel gas respectively. Chemically, coal is a macromolecular network comprised of groups of polynuclear aromatic rings to which are attached subordinate rings connected by oxygen, sulfur, and aliphatic bridges.