Experimental Study on Reduction of Nitrogen-Containing Compounds Contained in Crude Methylnaphthalene Oil by Solvent Extraction (II)

As a part of improving the quality of crude methylnaphthalene (CMNO), this study was experimentally examined the reduc-tion of nitrogen-containing compounds (NC) present in the CMNO by solvent extraction. The CMNO was composed of three kinds of NC [quinolone (QU), iso-quinoline (IQU), indole (IN)], three kinds of bicyclic aromatic compound [BAC; naph-thalene (NA), 1-methylnaphthalene (1MNA), 2-methylnaphthalene (2MNA)] and biphenyl (BP) etc., in addition to an aqueous formamide solution, which were used as raw materials and a solvent, respectively. The increase in the volume fraction of water to the solvent in the initial state (yw,0) caused a sharp decrease in the distribution coefficient and the yield of NC, but conversely raised the increased selectivity of NC based on 2MNA. The compositions of QU, IQU and IN in the raffinate oil recovered through the equilibrium extraction of batch co-current 5-stage under constant conditions [yw,0 = 0.1, volume fraction of solvent to feed (CMNO) at the initial state = 1, operating temperature = 303 K, liquid-liquid contacting time = 72 h] were reduced by about 51.5%, 55.2%, and 71.8%, respectively, when compared to those of CMNO. From the excellent reduction rate of NC, the formamide extraction method suggested in this study can be expected to be a useful reduction meth-od for NC contained in the CMNO.