Catalytic reforming of coal tar pitch in supercritical fluid

This paper describes a new method to remove nitrogen from coal derived pitches, using catalytic hydrotreating in supercritical toluene-tetralin. The results obtained suggest that nitrogen was selectively removed from the mother pitch, the reaction rate was much higher than that in conventional processes due to higher diffusivity, and coke deposition on the catalyst could be prevented perhaps due to the high solvent power of the supercritical fluid.