This report describes work completed during the fifth quarter of a three year project to study the effects of mild chemical pretreatment on coal dissolution reactivity during low severity liquefaction or coal/oil coprocessing. The overall objective of this research is to elucidate changes in the chemical and physical structure of coal by pretreating with methanol or other simple organic solvent and a trace amount of hydrochloric acid and measure the influence of these changes on coal dissolution reactivity. Work this quarter focused on analytical characterization of untreated and treated Wyodak subbituminous coal and Illinois {number sign}6 bituminous coal. Mossbauer spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction techniques were used to study the effect of methanol/HCl pretreatment on the composition of each coal's inorganic phase. Results from these studies indicated that calcite is largely removed during pretreatment, but that other mineral species such as pyrite are unaffected. This finding is significant, since calcite removal appears to directly correlate with low severity liquefaction enhancement. Further work will be performed to study this phenomenon in more detail.

This report describes work completed during the fifth quarter of a three year project to study the effects of mild chemical pretreatment on coal dissolution reactivity during low severity liquefaction or coal/oil coprocessing. The overall objective of this research is to elucidate changes in the chemical and physical structure of coal by pretreating with methanol or other simple organic solvent and a trace amount of hydrochloric acid and measure the influence of these changes on coal dissolution reactivity. Work this quarter focused on analytical characterization of untreated and treated Wyodak subbituminous coal and Illinois {number_sign}6 bituminous coal. Mossbauer spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction techniques were used to study the effect of methanol/HCl pretreatment on the composition of each coal`s inorganic phase. Results from these studies indicated that calcite is largely removed during pretreatment, but that other mineral species such as pyrite are unaffected. This finding is significant, since calcite removal appears to directly correlate with low severity liquefaction enhancement. Further work will be performed to study this phenomenon in more detail.