Supercritical water partial oxidation cracking of three-member ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compounds

Supercritical water partial oxidation cracking of PAH compounds was studied. A three-member ring PAH isomers, i.e., anthracene and phenanthrene were used as model compounds with aqueous hydrogen peroxide as oxidant. At 450°C, anthracene was partially oxidized to mainly 9,10-anthraquinone, 9,10-anthracenedione,2-hydroxy, xanthone, benzoic acid, naphthalene, and phenol while phenanthrene was converted into 4-hydroxy,9-fluorenone, anthraquinone, fluorenone, benzoic acid, naphthalene, and phenol. Increasing the reaction time contributed to the loss of oxygenated functionalities and hence enhanced the formation of neutral aromatic fragments, i.e., naphthalene, biphenyl, and fluorene. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering and 7th European Congress of Chemical Engineering (Prague, Czech Republic 8/28/2010-9/1/2010).