Chinese scientists have developed an effective was to remove the negative effects of nitrogen compounds in the hydrocracking of anthracene.
Although there are moves towards utilizing oils from renewable resources, petroleum-based hydrocarbon fuels will still be used in the immediate future. Hydrocracking of heavy oils is an important way to produce high-value liquid fuels due to the low H/C atomic ratio of the initial feedstock. 
In this work, scientists led by Buxing Han from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, present an effect method to overcome the effects of nitrogen compounds on the hydrocracking reaction. By investigating the effects of water and CO2 on the hydrocracking of anthracene, the team found that a water-CO2 mixture could eliminate the negative effects induced by the presence of nitrogen compounds and even enhance the efficiency of the reaction. The authors believe this is due to the buffer system that is created between the nitrogen compounds-water-CO2.
This article is currently free to access until the 13th July 2012! Click on the link below to find out more…
Elimination of the negative effect of nitrogen compounds by CO2–water in the hydrocracking of anthracene, Honglei Fan, Qian Wang, Jin Guo, Tao Jiang, Zhaofu Zhang, Guanying Yang and Buxing Han, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC35424A
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