Non-catalytic and catalytic fast pyrolysis of low grade Pakistani coal for high quality fuels and chemicals

Summary:

There are various type of fossil fuels such as crude oil, natural gas in which coal is one of the widely used as energy source
due to its low cost and abundance. The utilization of low rank coals has some problems such as higher CO2 emissions, more
difficulties in transportation and storage than high rank coals. Therefore, upgrading and highly developed technologies such
as liquefaction, gasification and pyrolysis of coal are needed to convert low rank coals into high valuable products such as
alkyl hydrocarbons (phenols) and aromatics. To obtain high grade light pyrolysis oils from coal under mild conditions, it is
necessary to develop a new in-situ catalytic pyrolysis process. The heavy compounds in the pyrolysis oil containing the dust
particles, high viscous liquids which are not easy to be separated from the pyrolysis oil during the coal pyrolysis and it may
lead to the problems in operation of the downstream equipment’s in the industry.

Literature is still lacking the comprehensive reporting of low grade coal conversion to liquid fuels via fast pyrolysis process.
This study will use a novel, dual-stage fixed-bed reactor for coal pyrolysis process.Pakistan is a coal-rich country, and there
are vast unexplored resources of low rank coal ranges from sub-bituminous to lignite, spread all over the country. According
to approximate estimates, the total coal resources of Pakistan are more than 185 billion tons. The coal deposits of Thar
lignite alone are estimated at 175.5 billion tonnes but still unexplored. The main objective of this study is to explore the
thermal conversion of abundant low grade coal into liquid fuel via fast pyrolysis process.

Project description

Goals & Objectives:

The potential research project aims to achieve the following goals by overcoming the gaps in existing work on jet-fuel
production from waste oil through implementation of following research activities:

 Investigate the production of jet-fuel from non-edible oil without consuming hydrogen.
 To develop a research apparatus for the investigation of the feasibility of converting oil to potentially aviation
fuel products using catalytic deoxygenation technique.
 Explore synthesis and characterize the novel catalysts for in-situ catalytic deoxygenation of waste oil.
 To investigate the influence of the various key process parameters (e.g. process temperature, catalyst)
on the product yield and quality.

Technical Details:

The research approach will cover the following tasks;

I. Selection of Low-grade coal:

During the first phase of research, low-grade coal will be selected from various location in Pakistan and utilized as
a raw material.
II. Catalyst Screening:

Hierarchical zeolites or metal doped zeolites catalysts have unique properties in a number of reactions that are
similar to those involved in the catalytic volatile-char reactions. Full evaluation of catalysts (e.g. improvement
in the accessibility ratio of Bronsted acid sites and structure) may provide an opportunity for limiting coke
deposition and improving the isomer and aromatics hydrocarbons yield. Effect of metal and promoter doped on
shape selective zeolites will be done for in situ reforming of volatiles from fast pyrolysis of low-grade coal.
Rigorous catalyst characterization analysis is planned in this work.

III. In situ catalytic pyrolysis of coal

The coal pyrolysis in N2 atmosphere as carrier gas was carried out in the two-staged bed reactor as shown in Fig. 1.
It is made of quartz glass containing an upper coal and a lower catalyst layer having lengths of 200 and 550 mm,
inner diameters 30 and 34 mm respectively. About 5 g coal and 2.5 g catalyst were loaded in the two layers
respectively, which was separated by a porous sintering quartz plate. Two thermocouples were installed to measure
the pyrolysis and cracking temperature inside the reactor. The reactor was heated to the desired temperature 600 °C
at the fixed heating rate of 100 °C/min within 6 min and held at the temperature for 30 min with 50 ml/min
nitrogen gas flow rate. The experiment of coal pyrolysis under nitogen gas was also performed at the same
pyrolysis conditions as without catalyst. The final pyrolysis liquid (water plus pyrolysis oil) product was collected
and cooled down in the pipe condensers and washed with three acetone bottles to collect the pyrolysis oil. The non-
condensable gases were dewatered in a silica gel column and collected in a gas bag. The liquid mixture (acetone
plus water) containing the pyrolysis oil was first dehydrated with MgSO4 and filtered and then vaporized at about
35 °C in the rotary vacuum evaporator to purify the pyrolysis oil. The obtained pyrolysis oil was dried at 35 °C in
oven and finally weighed. In this study yields, composition of pyrolysis oils, total fraction of light pyrolysis oils
and phenol contents in pyrolysis oil are expressed on the basis of dry and ash free (wt.%, daf), dry basis (wt.%, db)
and air dried (wt.%, ad) with the average value of at least three experiments within the experimental error ±0.5%.

Figure 1 shows the dual-stage fixed-bed pyrolyzer.

 IV. Product Characterization and Purification

The products will be characterized through GC-FID and GC-MS.

Impact: project impact for improving Pakistan Energy

 The potential research project would expect to achieve the following milestones;
 Oil from coal will be used as high quality fuel.
 Prototype research apparatus will be developed to assistant existing fuel producing
industry to develop new catalyst with high selectivity and yield.
 Completion on development of catalyst for in situ catalytic cracking process.
 Publications & annual report submission.

Deliverables & Milestones:

The potential research project would expect to achieve the following milestones;

 Selection and characterization of low-grade coal

 Completion of enhancement of lab scale and pilot scale apparatus.
 Meet the energy demand or energy-mix for possible solution of energy crisis.