Separation of high purity indole from coal tar by high pressure crystallization

Abstract High pressure crystallization has been applied to the separation and purification of indole from a model mixture of crude coal tar. Indole with 98.6 wt% purity was separated at 50 °C under a pressure of 2000 kgf cm −2 from the model mixture contaning 69.3 wt% indole. Successive ‘depressurization sweating’ increased the purity of indole up to 99.5 wt%. The equilibrium of the system under high pressure was also studied.