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CTL as way to lessen the impact of the declining conventional

Coal to Liquid Fuels

T.Avinash, Petroleum Technology, and I.Rohit, Petroleum Technology Jr., Members, SPE
Abstractcontinued trust on oil is unsustainable and this has
resulted in attention of alternative fuels. Coal to Liquids (CTL)
can produce liquid fuels and have been successfully used in
several cases as alternative for oil. This paper reviews CTL
theory, process, and technology. Converting coal into a liquid fuel
(coal liquefaction) is a tactile solution to the pressures felt by
countries dependent on oil imports, adversely affected by high oil
prices and having large reserves of coal.
Conversion ratios for CTL are generally in the range of 1-2
barrels/ton coal. This results in strict limitation on future CTL
capacity imposed by future coal production volumes. About 10%
of the world coal production can be diverted to CTL. But the
liquid fuel supply will be limited to only a few Mb/d. which
directly affects the CTL from becoming a viable mitigation plan
for liquid fuel shortage on a global scale. Even though CTL
producing limited amount of liquid fuels, it is possible for
individual countries having large reserves of coal for the
sufficient fuel supply to CTL. But it is not realistic to assume that
CTL provides a feasible to liquid fuels. For the major part, it can
only be claimed as a minor contributor.
Terms: Coal-to-Liquids, synthetic fuels, conversion ratio, coal
liquefaction

I.

INTRODUCTION

he price of oil has increased in a brisk pace over the

last few years. The oil price has reached about $100
per barrel in January 2008. This was happened before
the price was rocketed to $147 per barrel in July 2008. After
the huge collapse of the oil price in late 2008, the price of the
oil has now recovered to over $60 per barrel. There were some
signs of return to $20 per barrel which was the typical price in
1990s. The alternative fuels can be obtained from various
other feed stocks just like converting the solid materials to the
other forms.
The alternative for these
conventional fuels can be obtained from various other feed
stocks like coal also. This technology is known as the (CTL)
Coal to liquids. This (CTL) technology is mainly based on the
liquefaction, which is done by three basic approaches they are:
(1). Direct coal liquefaction (DCL), (2).Indirect coal
liquefaction (ICL), (3).Pyrolysis. Based on the type of
feedstock the, generally the synthetic fuel properties can be
made almost identical to the conventional fuels which are
obtained from crude oil.
This technology (CTL) is one of those technologies which are
the most dependable approach for the two world wars
technically and economically established. So we can expect a
significant future use of this
he date on which we submitted the paper for review is on 2 nd Feb 2013.
T
This work was supported in part by the Department of Petroleum Technology,
Sri Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem.T.Awinash is with Sri Aditya
Engineering College, Surampalem 5334337(e-mail:tadiawinash@gmail.com).
I.Rohit was with Sri Aditya Engineering College, Surampalem 5334337(email: rohitimandi@gmail.com).

fuels which are produced from petroleum.

A. Abbreviations and Acronyms
CTL-carbon to liquid
DCL-direct coal liquefaction
ICL-indirect coal liquefaction
FT-Fischer-Tropsch
DME-di methyl ether
II. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
This CTL technology is one of the technologies, developed at
the beginning of the 20th century, and recently attracted the
attention once more. Historically it has helped to fuel the
German military during the two world wars. This CTL has
provided about 92% of the Germanys air fuel and 50% of the
petroleum supply in 1940s. This CTL is developed in the
1950s by South Africa; now plays a vital role in the South
Africas national economy, providing 30% of their fuel
demand.
The best known of this CTL process is the FISCHERTROPSCH synthesis. The inventors of this process are Franz
Fischer and Hans Tropsch from the Kaiser William institute in
the 1920s. The FT-synthesis is the basis for ICL technology.
The Indirect coal liquefaction (ICL) was invented by a
German Chemist Friedrich Bergius as a way to convert ignites
into synthetic fuel in the year 1913. As a way to produce the
smokeless fuel Karrick invented a low temperature
carbonization process in the USA around the 1930s.

Fig 1: Coal to Liquid fuel technology is a well-established technology,

performing since 100 years. Coal-derived fuels are ultra-clean, sulphur-free,
low in particulates, and with low levels of oxides of nitrogen

The CTL technology has steadily improved since the Second

World War. However, only a few number of commercial
enterprises based on generating liquid fuels from coal have
been undertaken, and most of them are based on the ICL
technology. The most successful was the South African
company SASOL, originally created a way to protect the
countrys balance, of against the increasing demand on the oil.

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Even china implemented this technology; a new DCL plant
has become operational in china as a beginning of the new era.

III. BASIC CHEMISTRY OF CTL

Source combined with a hydrogen source, generally steam.
Chemical reactions between carbon and other compounds the
fundamental for all types of CTL-syntheses process is a
carbon will eventually forge the hydrocarbon molecules of the
craving length. The original Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process was
depicted by the below Formula.

( 2 n+1 ) H 2 +nCO n H 2 O+C n H 2n +2

Carbon monoxide can be produced by gasification of coal
or other carbon rich compound. The necessary energy is
applied by adding oxygen or steam.

1
C+ O2 CO
2
The net mixture of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (
H 2 ) is usually called synthesis gas (syngas). It is used to
build the hydrocarbon chains of different sizes using
condensation process and a politic catalyst. Generally, the FTprocess produces two types of products, described by two
reactions.

nCO+ 2n H 2 n H 2 O+ Cn H 2 n ( olefins )
nCO+ ( 2n+ 1 ) H 2 n H 2 O+C n H 2n +2 ( paraffins )

or abstract to access. For example in theory, FT-synthesis can

be used to produce liquid fuels from unconventional feedstock
as long as required amount of hydrogen and carbon are
available. For exponent, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and
other combustion poop out have been used as feedstock in
crystal clear applications.
A .Pyrolysis
The primeval method for annexing liquids from coal is high
temperature pyrolysis. Usually, coal is heated to around 950
C in a closed container. The heat causes decomposition and
the volatile matter is compelled away, which increases the
carbon content. This is parallel to the coke-making process
and supplementing tar-like liquid where it is mostly a side
product.
The operation results invery low liquid yields and elevating
costs are relatively high. Coal tar is not consistently used as a
fuel in the transportation stratum. But, it is used globally for
manufacturing roofing, waterproofing and insulation products
and also used as a raw material for various dyes, drugs and
paints.
Mild temperature pyrolysis operates at a temperature of 450650 C. Mostof the volatile matter is ride off and the
remaining compounds are formed through thermal
decomposition. Liquid yields are higher when compared to
high temperature pyrolysis, but reach a maximum at 20%. The
main products are char, semi-coke and coke (all smokeless
solid fuels). This technique has mostly been used to improve
low-rank coals, by increasing calorific value and reducing
sulphur content.

The type of emerging products returned, depends upon the

type of CATALYST and the reactor operating conditions.
Olefin rich products can be used for making Synthetic
gasoline and Chemicals at high temperatures and Paraffin rich
products can be used for making Synthetic diesel and Waxes at
low temperatures. The required range of n for olefin and
paraffin rich products are 5-10 (naphtha) and 12-19
respectively at FT-process operating temperatures.
Some of the commonly used catalysts are
Transition metals like iron, cobalt or ruthenium. And the
transition metal sulphides, amorphous zeolite and similar
compounds are also utilized.

IV. CTL TECHNOLOGY OPTIONS

Generally, there are different types of technologies for the
conversion of coal to liquid fuels. Whileonly some have been
proved as commercially feasible for the industry, Coal to
liquid (CTL) technology is an old concept that has to be
federated with modish processes and machinery to be able to
fulfill the economic and environmental constraints of today.
Surviving technological framework from
conventional crude oil processing and gas liquefaction can
render collusive effects decreasing costs and necessary
research. Ground work on synthetic fuels from non-coal
feedstock exists in several places, where coal is too expensive

Fig 2: Pyrolysis is an older technique, for the conversion of coal to liquids. In

which coal is heated at high temperatures which results in producing of char,
coke, semi coke, bio-oil, and all smokeless solid fuels.

The Karrick process is a low temperature carbonization

process that also yields liquids. Generally the main product is,
semi-coke. And the tar liquids produced here should require
further refining before they can be used as a transportation
fuel.
In arbitrary, pyrolysis produce low liquid yields and has
innately low efficiency. Moreover, the resulting liquids require
further treatment before they can be used in existing vehicles.

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A manifestation plant for coal upgrading was built in the USA
and was operational between the years 1992 and 1997.
However, there is less possibility for this process to yield
economically feasible volumes of liquid fuel. Consequently,
further investigation and analysis of coal pyrolysis is not
undertaken.
B. Direct Coal Liquefaction
The basic process involved in this direct coal liquefaction
technique is dissolving the coal at high temperatures and
pressures. Adding of hydrogen and a worthy catalyst results in
hydro-cracking, splitting long carbon chains into shorter,
liquid parts. The added hydrogen also advances the H/C-ratio
of the product.
Liquid yields can be 70% excess of the dry weight
coal, with net thermal efficiencies of 60-70%. The deriving
liquids are of higher quality, when compared to pyrolysis, and
can be used directly in power generation or any other chemical
processes as a synthetic crude oil (syncrude).

This process involves in a complete disintegration of coal into

other compounds by the gasification process. Resulting syngas
is mutated to acquire the demanded balance of hydrogen and
carbon monoxide. Later, the syngas is cleaned, by removing
the sulphur and other impurities efficient of disturbing further
reactions. Finally, the syngas is reacted with a catalyst to
provide the required product using FT-reactions.
Mending of catalysts and reaction conditions can evolve a
wide array of different products. For instance, methanol is one
possible product that can be produced directly or further
converted into high quality gasoline via the Mobil process in
additional stages. In general, there are two types of FTsynthesis, a high temperature version primarily yielding a
gasoline-like fuel and a low temperature version, mainly
providing a diesel-like fuel. More details on FT-synthesis via
ICL-technology have been discussed by others.
Sasol in South Africa owns the only commercial-scale ICL
plants currently in operation with well-established and proven
technology and together with a lot of operational experience.
In total, Sasol has over 50 years of experience of Indirect Coal
Liquid (ICL) and has produced over 1.5 billion barrels of
synthetic oil during its presence. A number of different ICLtechnologies have been developed by Sasol, the oldest ones
date from the 1950s and was used to late 1980s. Today,
advanced technologies from the 1990s are utilized, including
the Sasol Advanced Synthol High Temperature FT-synthesis
and the Sasol Slurry Phase Distillate Low Temperature FTsynthesis

Fig 3: Direct Coal Liquefaction process is highly efficient, but the liquids
products require further refining to achieve high grade fuel characteristics

However, further treatment is needed before they are usable as

a transport fuel and refining stages are needed in the full
process chain. Refining can be done directly at the CTLfacility or by sending the synthetic crude oil to a conventional
refinery. A mixture of many gasoline-like and diesel-like
products, as well as other chemical compounds like propane,
butane and other products can be recovered from the refined
syncrude.
Some smaller pilot-plants and testing facilities have provided
positive results. In 2002, the Shenhua Group Corporation, the
largest state-owned mining company in China, was tasked
with designing and constructing the worlds first DCL
commercial plant in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,
which recently became operational.
C. Indirect Coal Liquefaction

.
Fig 4: Indirect Coal Liquefaction first gasifies the coal with steam to form
syngas, which on further condensation over a catalyst gives high quality, ultra
clean products such as petrol, diesel, synthetic waxes lubricants etc.

V. RESOURCE AVAILABILITY
Generally this CTL fuel technology is suitable for the
countries which are heavily depended on the oil imports and
have large of coal reserves. We know thatconverting coal into
liquid fuels is more costly than current energy technologies;
both in phases of production costs and the amount of

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greenhouse gases are emitted. Production of coal-to-liquid fuel
has a large carbon stepping, releasing more than twice that of
lifecycle greenhouse gases of conventional petroleum fuels.
So this conversionof coal to fuels is only accessible for the
countries which are highly dependent on oil and natural gas
imports and also having large amounts of coal like USA,
china, India.

Fig 6: Coal to liquids are also used directly in the petrol engines, and also uses
in the stationary power plants as a fuel.

Fig 5: The graph represents worlds main coal reserves accordingly. And the
Asian countries are Russia, China, India, Kazakhstan etc.

The countries which are having large amounts of coal and

highly dependent on oil imports are generally India, China,
South Africa, Germany etc. nearly from 100 years Germany is
notably converting these coal to liquids successfully and the
production peak is in the year 1940, and then South Africa
from the year 1950 implemented this technique and today
around 30% of the gasoline and diesel needs are produced
from this indigenous coal. And in the year 2008 China had
started the first CTL facility plant in the world, which can
produce 1 million tons of coal based liquid fuels per year.
VI. BENEFITS OF CTL FUELS
The products which are produced from the conversion of coal
are Ultra-clean petrol, Ultra-clean diesel, synthetic waxes,
lubricants, chemical feed stocks, and alternative liquid fuels
such as methanol and dimethyl ether (DME).
The fuels produced from these conversions can be directly
used as transportation fuels without changing any design of
the engine.
These indigenous coal fuels can bring cleaner fuel for
transportation, reduce greenhouse emission through carbon
capture storage systems and it will helps in the Energy basket
of a country.

1 .Coal is affordable and available worldwide enabling

countries to access domestic coal reserves
2. A well-supplied international market
3. Decrease reliance on oil imports, improving energy
security.
4. Coal liquids can be used for transport, cooking, stationary
power generation, and in the chemicals industry.
5. Coal-derived fuels are sulphur-free, low in particulates, and
low in nitrogen oxides.
6. Liquid fuels from coal provide ultra-clean cooking fuels,
alleviating health risks from indoor air pollution

VII. EMMISSIONS
The sulphur content of CTL products are low when compared
to petroleum-derived fuels, and it is a common trait for both
DCL and ICL, which comes from the mandatory reason to
protect catalysts from poisoning. Apart from this equality,
emissions and combustion characteristics of DCL and ICL
type of fuels will differ. Comprehensive analysis of emission
characteristics of synthetic and conventional fuels have been
compared by others departments.
DCL types of products are generally rich in polycyclic
aromatics and heteroatoms, but ICL type of products has lower
aromatics content. In high temperature conditions FTsynthesis yields branched products and contains aromatics
type of compounds, but these compounds are virtually absent
in low temperature FT-synthesis operations. Recently,
environmental regulation trends have been moved towards
reducing the aromatic content in transportation fuels, and
giving the advantage to ICL-fuels.
Toxic and trace metals and inorganic compounds, such as
cadmium, selenium, arsenic, lead and mercury, can be passed

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over the final fuel products in both DCL and ICL type ofprocesses. In ICL-systems, eliminating of mercury and other
metals is generally easierand inexpensive. But for DCL, it will
be more complicated and more costly, but it is not impossible.

be stored in deep saline aquifers or it can be used to assist in

enhanced oil recovery and subsequent Carbon dioxide storage
systems. CO2 can also becaptured and sold to the industries
like food and beverages, which displaces the CO2 currently
sourced specifically for this purpose from naturally occurring
CO2 deposits. This also provides an extra source of revenue
for the project.

Fig 7: Vallentin concludes that DCL produce 90% more carbon dioxide and
ICL produce 80-110% more carbon dioxide when compared to normal
petroleum-derived fuels

Cetane and octane numbers also differ, resulting from the

chemical properties of the various products. ICL gives diesel
of a high quality, which is mostly due to the dominance of
straight-chain products. However, low densities are a problem
for ICL products, but this can be lowered by blending.
Both DCL and ICL fuels emit large amounts of
carbon dioxide compared to ordinary petroleum-derived fuels.
But, there are methods for mitigating or even neutralizing
emissions without increasing production costs drastically.
Substantial differences exist between DCL and ICL
technologies with regard to the potential and cost of
greenhouse gas emission mitigation.
Vallentin concludes that DCL generates about 90% more
CO2 than conventional fuel on a well-to-wheel basis. This
is in agreement with other studies, but if reduction measures
are implemented, the emissions could be reduced to no more
than 30% extra compared to conventional petroleum fuels.
ICL-technology generates approximately 80-110% more
CO2 emissions compared to conventional fuels, if the

CO2 is

vented.

However,

there

are

ICL-system

H 2 S+CO 2 co-capture/co-storage
configurations where
can reduce emissions. Well-to-wheel analysis has shown that
even with CTL production chain emissions are higher than for
petroleum-derived fuels, mostly due to emissions from
mining.
Carbon capture and storage involves the capture of Carbon
dioxide emissions from the source, followed by the
transportation to, and storage in, geological formations.
Carbon Capture Storage is particularly applicable to the CTL
process as the Carbon dioxide stream produced from CTL is at
a very high concentration, and a very little of the costly of
Carbon dioxide separation is required before the transportation
and the storage. If the Carbon dioxide has been captured then
there are a number of storage options available. The CO2 can

Fig 8: The percentage of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter,

and carbon dioxide can be reduced by using co-storage systems etc.

In summary, CTL fuels can improve emission characteristics

and reduce transportation emissions of sulphur, aromatics,
NO x and particles compared to conventional fuels.
However, there does not seem to be much potential for
CO2 emission reductions if the full supply chain is
analysed for either DCL or ICL.

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VIII. CONCLUSION
Coal-to-liquid technology is a well- established process that
does not necessitate future research to successfully produce
liquid transportation fuels. However, making the greenhouse
gas emissions of synthetic fuels derived from coal comparable
to those of oil requires further research into emissions from
CTL and CBTL production and large-scale carbon
sequestration. Although sequestering massive amounts of
CO2 is possible in theory, questions still remain about the
length of time the sequestered CO2 would remain in place, the
long-term ecological impacts of sequestration, and the costs of
constructing a CO2 storage facility, the geologic formations
that make the best storage sites, monitoring leaks, and general
commercial viability. Based up on the heavy dependence on
oil imports, and having coalas a basic energy source, these
research steps will likely be taken regardless of whether CTL
technology becomes widespread.
REFERENCES
[1]. World coal association, www.worldcoal.org.
[2]. advancing science serving society policy brief: CTL
technology, www.aaas.org

T.Avinash:was
born
in
Rajamundry City, in 1993. He is
pursuing undergraduate degree
in Petroleum Technology from Sri
Aditya Engineering College. His
research
interests
include
development
of
other
unconventional sources of energy like Gas
hydrates; and green (algae) crude oil.He is a
junior member of Society of Petroleum Engineers
since February 2012.
Rohit Imandi (M20) was born in Kakinada, Andhra
pradesh, in 1993. He is pursuing undergraduate
degree in Petroleum Technology from Sri Aditya
Engineering College. His research interests
include development of other unconventional
sources of energy like Gas hydrates, liquefied
petroleum from coal.He is a junior member of
Society of Petroleum Engineers since February
2012.