ENHANCING CHAIN TRANSFER DURING COAL-LIQUEFACTION - A MODEL SYSTEM-ANALYSIS

The aggregation of coal liquefaction elementary steps into representat ive reaction families allowed further organization into the Rice-Herzf eld kinetic formalism. Solution of this model and subsequent impositio n of the Evans-Polanyi structure-reactivity correlation revealed the a ttributes of an optimal chain-transfer solvent. In particular, the opt imal chain-transfer solvent will have an intermediate C-H bond strengt h for catalysis of coal degradation chemistry. The results suggest a h omogeneous analogue of the classical principle of Sabatier in heteroge neous catalysis.