Insights into coke formation during thermal reaction of six different distillates from the same coal tar

Abstract The high yields of coke and tar pitch relating to volatile reactions can cause plug in the product lines during low temperature pyrolysis of low-rank coals. To study the potential transformation of volatile into coke during its migration in the pyrolysis process, six distillates and their blends from the same coal tar were heated at 400–600 °C. The composition, radicals of six distillates and coke structure were characterized by GC × GC–MS, ESR and Raman techniques, respectively. The results show that the coke yields increase with temperature during thermal reaction for all six distillates. When light oil and pitch are blended, the interaction between the two distillates compresses the transformation of volatile into coke above 500 °C. This can be ascribed to that the reactive hydrogen radicals generated from light oil may weaken the bonding between large molecules. By contrast, other distillates (phenolic oil, naphthalic oil, wash oil and anthracene oil) promote coke formation, resulting in higher coke yields than expected. It is also observed that the highest extent of interaction occurs between phenolic oil and pitch, which may be related to the high content of oxygen containing compounds in phenolic oil and the high electron density of the compounds in pitch.