Unusual structures in mesophase from a petroleum pitch

✍ Scribed by Alan Grint; Harry Marsh

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1979
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 647 KB
• Volume: 58
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-2361
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-2361(79)90218-7

✦ Synopsis

Cokes from the carbonization of a petroleum pitch possess an optical texture containing anisotropic spherules with an unusual structure. These spherules (10 to 20 pm diameter) were found to be present in the original pitch and could be removed as a quinoline-insoluble fraction. This suggests that the spherules are formed during the modification of the pitch after initial fractionation of the petroleum feed-stock. The optical texture of these spherules, examined by polarized light optical microscopy, reveals a complicated 'rosette' structure quite unlike the structure of the spheres of mesophase now known as 'Brooks and Taylor' spheres. An EDAX analysis of polished segments of the spherules indicated no unusually high concentration of inorganic matter, e.g. vanadium, suggesting that the spherules did not originate from asphaltenes. The influence of such spherules or inclusions in the parent pitch upon properties of resultant cokes is briefly commented upon.