Diesel from Coal Hydrogenation Liquids

ACIRL coal derived diesels contain high levels of nitrogen oxygen and aromatics which preclude them from use as a diesel fuel or blendstock. The nitrogen and oxygen can be removed to an acceptable level in a single step hydrotreatment. However the products still contain unacceptably high levels of aromatics and are thus only suitable as diesel blend stocks. The severity required to produce diesel blendstocks was high compared to current diesel hydro treating. Further severe processing in a second step was required to reduce the aromatic content. The resultant product was highly naphthenic with an undesirably low cetane index of 36. It is expected that treatment with conventional cetane additives will improve the cetane number to 50, and that the treated product would be suitable as diesel fuel.