The H-Coal® process was developed in 1970s at a bench scale pilot plant, but it was scaled to 200 TPD in 1980 at the Catlettsburg, Kentucky demonstration plant. The process converts coal directly into liquid fuels. It provides a typical yield of four to five barrels of oil per ton of coal on a moisture-free basis while coal gasification can supply hydrogen. Engineering, design, reports and study commissioning services are provided by HTI based on its expertise in coal processing.
H-Coal®
H-Coal® uses HTI’s ebullated-bed reactor system for the direct conversion of coal into liquid fuels. During the process, coal is crushed and pulverized into fine size particles and mixed with recycle oil to provide a coal slurry that is fed to the ebullating bed reactor. In the reactor, the catalyst is kept in a state of constant motion (or fluidization), thus offering the following benefits:
- The constant recycle oil from the ebullating pump to the reactor results in nearly isothermal operation,
- The potential for bed plugging and/or channeling is eliminated with low and constant pressure,
- The ebullated-bed reactor allows operation at higher severity thus achieving higher conversion,
- Fresh catalyst can be added and spent catalyst withdrawn to control an optimal level of catalyst activity in the reactor.
H-Coal®TS
Similar to the H-Coal® process, this process uses HTI’s two-stage ebullated-bed reactor system for the direct conversion of coal into liquid fuels. By introducing two-stages, the yield and selectivity of the H-Coal® process was significantly improved by promoting hydrogenation in the first stage at lower temperature and hydrocracking in the second stage at higher temperature.
