Contents - Akademi Sains Malaysia

ASM Science Journal, Volume 7(1), 2013catalysts improves total conversion and selectivitywhich will increase the yield of oils. This results in moreefficient hydrogen consumption. Furthermore, the catalystsused will affect the reduction of reaction such as lowertemperature, pressure and reaction time. Prasassarakichet al. (2007) studied that in the absence of catalyst, the oilyield decreased with temperatures above 410ºC and thecontent of naptha and kerosene increased while light gas oiland gas oil decreased with increasing temperatures. The useof an appropriate catalyst due to more severe thermolysisof the coal structure, results in an increase in the amount ofthe coal structure; thus, an increase in the amount of lighterand intermediate compounds at the expense of the highermolecular weight compounds.Liquefaction of Mukah Balingian (MB) low-rank coalwas carried out using semi-continuous solvent flow twostagereactor system at temperatures above 400ºC in orderto study the effect of catalytic liquefaction by separatingthe coal and the catalyst in different reactors. Bothextraction and radical reactions occurred as shown by theincrease in the percentages of asphaltenes, pre-asphaltenesand oil+gas yield (Kassim et al. 2007). The second reactorfilled with catalyst needed to break those asphaltenes andpre-asphaltenes. This solution will increase the oil+gasyield. In this paper, the results obtained from this processsuch as oil conversion and distribution of asphaltene andpreasphaltene at several parameters were discussed.Sample PreparationEXPERIMENTALThe coal sample used in this study is MB Malaysianlow-rank coal which originated in Sarawak, Malaysia.The procedure for coal preparation has been reported byIshak et. al. (2005). Briefly, the coal samples were groundand sieved through progressively into finer screen toobtain particle sizes of