Abstract
A comparative study was carried out on two high-ash coals, Wyodak III (American) and Mina do Leão (Brazilian), with respect to their content of saturates, olefins, aromatic hydrocarbons and polar compounds. A pyridine extract of each coal was fractionated by a silica gel preparative scale column generating four fractions of increasing polarity. Each fraction was colleted and examined by normal phase HPLC using “on-line” coupled silica and cyano-bonded columns. The results show that preparative scale fractionation alone is not enough to characterize coal-derived liquids, but it will be useful as a first step to generate fractions for HPLC characterization.