Ruthenium tetroxide oxidation of low-rank coals
The goal of these studies was to elucidate the structural features of coals which are believed to be important in conversion processes. Of special interest are the nature of the hydroaromatic groups and the bridging groups between aromatic moieties, because of their roles in thermal cleavage and depolymerization processes and the hydrogen shuttling which occurs during the depolymerization and stabilization of cleavage products. The first objective was the development of new methods for the isolation or solubilization of the aliphatic groups in the coal, which may then be related to these hydroaromatic systems and bridging groups. We have successfully used ruthenium tetroxide in a two phase solvent system with a phase transfer catalyst to selectively oxidize the aromatic groups. The oxidation of a North Dakota lignite with ruthenium tetroxide with the phase transfer catalyst proceeded rapidly at ambient temperature giving carbon dioxide and carboxylic acid products which were converted to methyl esters by diazomethane for qualitative analysis using GC and GC/MS. A very complex mixture of aliphatic mono and polycarboxylic acids and aromatic polycarboxylic acids was formed in the reaction. A comparison of three oxidation methods, the ruthenium tetroxide with phase transfer catalyst, the ruthenium tetroxide with acetonitrile and the trifluoroperacetic acid, was carried out on the same sample of Beulah lignite. There was no significant difference in the amounts of acid products between the two ruthenium tetroxide methods. A number of low-rank coals were oxidized for comparison purposes. Values for the amounts of six carboxylic acid products which were determined using the isotope dilution method are reported in Table 2. The amounts of the six acids in the oxidation products generally increase with coal rank or % C. 8 refs., 6 tabs.
- Research Organization:
- North Dakota Univ., Grand Forks (USA). Energy Research Center
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC21-83FE60181
- OSTI ID:
- 6323193
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/FE/60181-159; CONF-8511136-4; ON: DE86003206
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Direct liquefaction contractors conference, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 19 Nov 1985
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
CARBOXYLIC ACIDS
CHEMICAL REACTION YIELD
LIGNITE
OXIDATION
STRUCTURAL CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
RUTHENIUM OXIDES
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
SUBBITUMINOUS COAL
AROMATICS
CATALYSTS
COAL RANK
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
GAS CHROMATOGRAPHY
MASS SPECTROSCOPY
NITRILES
BROWN COAL
CARBONACEOUS MATERIALS
CHALCOGENIDES
CHROMATOGRAPHY
COAL
DATA
ENERGY SOURCES
FOSSIL FUELS
FUELS
INFORMATION
MATERIALS
NUMERICAL DATA
ORGANIC ACIDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
ORGANIC NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
REFRACTORY METAL COMPOUNDS
RUTHENIUM COMPOUNDS
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SPECTROSCOPY
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS
YIELDS
010600* - Coal
Lignite
& Peat- Properties & Composition