Kinetics of mesophase formation in a stirred tank reactor and properties of the products—II. Discontinuous reactor

Abstract

The paper is concerned with the kinetics of mesophase formation from a petroleum and an extracted coal tar pitch during pyrolysis in a discontinuous stirred tank reactor under argon and hydrogen pressures of 1 MPa. The mesophase is a product of consecutive reactions. Its formation under all conditions could be described by the following reaction scheme: ▪ According to this scheme, poly-aromatics { PA} are primarily formed as an intermediate product from the original pitch { A + a}, where { a} represents the volatile fraction of the pitch. Mesogenic aromatics { MA} forming mesophase { MP} are dimerisation products of the poly-aromatic molecules. The reaction scheme was derived from plots of the glass transition temperature, T g , density, ρ, and coke yield, CY, of the residues as a function of mesophase content. These plots also show the influence of hydrogen on the properties of the products.