Process for the hydrogenation of hydro-carbonaceous materials (carb-mat)

Abstract

A process for the reductive hydrogenation of insufficiently hydrogenated, non-volatile carbonaceous materials to produce vaporizable products wherein the feed materials are brought into initial solution under pressure 300-500.degree. C. with or without the addition of recycle solvent with or without added catalyst. The catalyst may, as an option, be added during agglomeration, if that technique is used, as an oily precursor or as a slurry of a somewhat hydrophobic {namosize} nanosize particulate catalyst or catalyst precursor. Short-contact-time reactors providing plug-type flow and high shear are used. The resultant ashy slurry is passed, highly dispersed, into a fluidized or moving bed of solids that may be inert or catalytic at 350-500.degree. C. and 100-3500 psi where a reducing gas passing up through the bed reductively increases the volatility and decreases the molecular weight of the feed in what is the equivalent of reaction of the feed on each particle in an extremely piston flow manner. As a result, yield loss resulting from coking and gasification of the feed that would be a consequence of too long a reaction time is avoided. The yield improvement is further augmented by the increase in reaction rate that results from the greater area available for transfer of the reducing gas to the film of feed on the particles and from the thinner film through which the reducing gas must diffuse and from the greater catalyst:feed ratio that results from the build-up of catalyst on the particles. A purge of the particulate solids forming the bed passes to a second vessel where its coating may be attrited off the particulate to prepare it for recycle. After or previous to its separation, the coating may be treated to recover energy from its coke content, and catalyst from its ash, all difficult, costly steps in such existing processes as coal liquefaction.