| Synthetic fuels produced from coal have been shown to be mutagenic and carcinogenic. Catalytic hydrogenation eliminates the mutagenic amino polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (APAH) and improves the process efficiency. As a result, the partially-hydrogenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (hydroaromatics) increase in abundance and can constitute up to 80 percent of the final product. Unfortunately, there has been little work on the analytical chemistry and biological activity of this class of compounds. The goal of this research was the development of analytical techniques to separate and identify hydroaromatics and to apply these techniques to several coal-derived liquids (SRC-II, H-Coal, and ITSL). The experimental approach used high resolution gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, and ultraviolet and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The development of rules governing the identification of specific hydroaromatic standards. These standards were synthesized either by catalytic hydrogenation or metal-ammonia reduction of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.;Isolation of a hydroaromatic fraction from coal-derived liquids was achieved by column chromatography using picric acid coated on alumina. The separation scheme resulted in four fractions consisting of aliphatics, hydroaromatics, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and amino polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Analysis of the hydroaromatic fraction resulted in the chemical characterization of specific hydroaromatics. |
