An improved basket reactor, equipped with a specially designed catalyst basket assembly to determine the exact starting time of reaction in batchwise experiments, was developed. The reactor was proved to be useful in experiments even under high temperature and pressure. Using this reactor, kinetic studies of liquid-phase hydrogenation of 1-methylnaphthalene were carried out as a model reaction of regeneration of hydrogen donor solvent for coal liquefaction and hydrotreating of polyaromatic sources of gas oil, in the range of 583-643K temperature and 3.1-7.7 MPa hydrogen partial pressure over a commercial Co-Mo/gamma-Al2O3 catalyst. To establish kinetic equations, the reaction equilibrium for conversion of 1-methylnaphthalene to methyltetralins was measured. Langmuir-Hinshelwood type kinetic equations, based on surface reaction between dual adsorption sites of hydrogen and reactants, fairly represented the effects of temperature and hydrogen partial pressure on the yields.