Analytical study on mesocarbon microbeads derived from coal tar pitch
Pitches have been recognized as excellent precursors for carbon materials and their properties are considered to be influential on the properties and function of carbon material. For this reason, their detailed characterization is being required. Successful pitch characterization must satisfy the following points: (1) very complicated pitches can be clearly distinguished; (2) the performance of the final carbon product can be predicted by characterizing the precursor pitch at its molecular level; and (3) a satisfactory explanation can be provided for chemical and physical behavior of pitches for a given utilization process based on their structural differences. Successful pitch characterization is quite difficult to be attained because pitches are very complex mixtures containing several hundred compounds with different functionalities. Thus, the methods for their characterization are limited to the measurements of average structural parameters, such as softening point (SP), H/C atomic ratio, quinoline- and toluene-insoluble (QI and TI) fractions, aromaticity, carbon yield, etc.. Although these parameters can give a fairly good evaluation about pitch quality, they can not always explain why pitches with similar characteristics on traditional characterization techniques display a significantly different behavior. This fact provides a challenging subject in the field of pitch characterization. At the same time, there is a possibility that in a given case satisfactory important factors remain undetected due to the limitation of analytical techniques, thus leading to serious problems in the pitch utilization. Therefore, it seems to be essential to know, for a given utilization of pitches, which of the pitch properties normally measured is important and how this affects the behavior of pitch. Another serious difficulty in pitch characterization is the fact that pitches are normally not completely soluble in solvents. There is no single analytical technique which can provide complete information about structures of pitches. Thus, the combination of different analytical techniques seems to be best for the characterization of such materials. The first objective of this paper is to give an insight into structural features of two kinds of mesocarbon microbeads (MCMB) derived from different coal tar pitches, by conducting butylation of MCMB with butyl iodide catalyzed by dibutylzinc and characterizing their butylated products according to conventional techniques. The second one is to differentiate two MCMB in terms of chemical structure based on IR, SEM and Raman spectroscopy. Most of this information is extracted from the authors' earlier and just completed papers, cited in the references.
- Research Organization:
- Osaka Univ. (JP)
- OSTI ID:
- 20082322
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Sixteenth Annual International Pittsburgh Coal Conference, Pittsburgh, PA (US), 10/11/1999--10/15/1999; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating systems required: Windows 95/98; Windows 3.X, Macintosh; PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: Sixteenth annual international Pittsburgh Coal Conference: Proceedings, [2000] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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