Preparation of low toxicity pitches by thermal oxidative condensation of anthracene oil.

This article describes a novel industrial procedure for producing new pitches of low toxicity from anthracene oil, a byproduct of coal tar distillation. The procedure involves oxidative treatment in order to polymerize and condense the anthracene oil components followed by thermal treatment and distillation in order to obtain a pitch with the desired parameters. This sequence (oxidative treatment/thermal treatment/distillation) was repeated four times under reaction conditions of increasing severity in four cycles of anthracene oil processing to obtain the four pitches. The pitches had similar characteristics to those of standard binder coal tar pitches (e.g., softening point and wetting capacity). Because of the inherent composition of the parent anthracene oil, the pitches were found to be totally free of solid particles, i.e., primary quinoline insolubles and metals. The gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy results revealed a consecutive decrease in toxicity with successive cycles of anthracene oil processing. Thus, the benzo[a]pyrene content decreased from 11.2 mg/g for the pitch in cycle one to 1.5 mg/g for the pitch with four processing cycles. The carcinogenicity of the pitches, evaluated on the basis of benzo[a]pyrene toxic equivalency factors, also followed the same tendency. The final carcinogenity values are nearly all lower than those of standard binder coal tar pitches.

Influence of laminar flow on preorientation of coal tar pitch structural units: Raman microspectroscopic study.

In order to estimate the role of laminar flow of viscous, aromatic matter of carbonaceous precursor on microtextural preorientation in pregraphitization stage, we performed experiments with coal tar pitch (CTP). The principal hypothesis of preorientation of basic structural units (BSUs) in the case of laminar flow (pressure impregnation of CTP into porous matrix) and secondary release of volatiles during carbonization were studied. Glass microplates, planar porous medium with average distance between single microplates 5 microm were used as suitable porous matrix. Samples of CTP were carbonized up to 2500 degrees C. Optical microscopy reveals large flow domains in the sample of cokes carbonized between glass microplates. Raman microspectroscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) show that at nanometric scale, the samples do not support the proposed hypotheses. With increasing temperature of pyrolysis, the graphitization of CTP impregnated into porous matrix proceeds to lower degree of structural ordering in comparison with single pyrolyzed CTP. This is explained by the release of volatile matter during carbonization in geometrically restricted spaces. More evident structural changes were discovered with the sample of single coke, where parts of fine grain mosaics, relicts of 'so called QI parts', reveal higher structural organization, in comparison with large and prolonged flow domains, similar to flow domains of cokes from microplates.