Evaluation of catalytic deoxygenation of soluble species from a coal using mass spectrometers

ABSTRACT

A low-rank coal was subjected to deoxygenation using NiO/Mo₂O₃-ZSM-5 as the catalyst and ethanol as the solvent under pressurized hydrogen circumstance to acquire a catalytic product (CP). Another parallel reaction was repeated with the same procedure but with nitrogen circumstance and without the catalyst to obtain a non-catalytic product (NCP). Both CP and NCP were analyzed with a Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, a gas chromatography/mass spectrometer (GC/MS) and an Orbitrap mass spectrometer (Orbitrap MS) to understand the deoxygenation features of low-rank coal. Low polar and molecular mass compounds were detected in NCP and CP using GC/MS. Compared with GC/MS, more species and high polarity were identified in NCP and CP by Orbitrap MS. The three analytical techniques indicated the effective oxygen removal during the catalytic treatment and provide a comprehensive evaluation of the deoxygenation process.

KEYWORDS:

• Catalytic deoxygenation
• coal
• FTIR
• GC/MS
• Orbitrap MS

Nomenclature

CP	=	Catalytic product
CN	=	Carbon number
DBE	=	Double-bond equivalence
ESI	=	Electrospray ionization
FTIR	=	Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
GC/MS	=	Gas chromatography/mass spectrometer
HRMS	=	High-resolution mass spectrometry
MS	=	Mass spectrometry
NCCs	=	Nitrogen-containing compounds
NCP	=	Non-catalytic product
NIST	=	National Institute of Standards and Technology
OCCs	=	Oxygen-containing compounds
WLFC	=	Wucaiwan long flame coal
XPS	=	X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant 2017XKQY059), and a Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.