Process for selectively dealkylating aromatic compounds

A process for selectively dealkylating aromatic compounds, comprising:

• providing a coal tar stream comprising aromatic compounds;
• hydrotreating the coal tar stream in the presence of a hydrotreating catalyst comprising at least one of group VIII metals, and at least one group VI metals to reduce a concentration of one or more of organic sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen in the coal tar stream, and to hydrogenate at least a portion of the aromatic compounds to naphthenes in the coal tar stream to produce a hydrotreated coal tar stream;
• hydrocracking the hydrotreated coal tar stream in the presence of a catalyst comprising amorphous silica-alumina bases or low-level zeolite bases combined with one or more Group VIII or Group VIB metal hydrogenating components to further hydrogenate the aromatic compounds and to crack at least one ring of multi-ring aromatic compounds to form single-ring aromatic compounds;
• and
• dealkylating the single-ring aromatic compounds in the presence of a dealkylating catalyst, the dealkylating catalyst being a monometallic catalyst comprising at least one of a strong acid zeolite and a heteropolyacid to remove substantially all alkyl groups containing two or more carbon atoms, while removing less than 10% of alkyl groups having only one carbon and three hydrogen atoms.