CHARACTERISTICS EVALUATION OF COAL TAR PITCH RESULTED FROM COAL TAR AND HEAVY TAR DISTILLATION AS PRECURSORS OF CARBON ANODE

• Main Author: Rozan Febrian, Achmad
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/64665
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

In the steel industry that uses a blast furnace, one of the raw materials needed is areducing agent, in the form of coke, the result of metallurgical carbonization of coking coal. In the vertical coke oven carbonization technology, in addition to the main product of coke produced, the by-products produced are also coke oven gas (COG) and coal tar (CT). In contrast to COG which is used directly in steel factories or power plants, coal tar needs to be processed into coal tar pitch (CTP) to be used, one of which is as a carbon In the future, the need for carbon precursor materials such as mesocarbon microbeads which are synthetic carbon anode precursors is expected to continue to increase to meet the needs of electric car battery components. However, CT and CTP must have certain qualities required by the anode, such as C/H ratio, ash content, quinoline insoluble (QI), softening point, coking value, and density. Therefore, a comprehensive study on the characterization of CTP from CT distillation from a coke factory in Indonesia is very important to determine the potential utilization of coal tar in Indonesia, along with the appropriate preparation method. In this study, compositional and physical characterization experiments were carried out on coal tar (CT) and heavy tar (HT) from PT Krakatau Posco, including their distillation products. Characterization was also carried out on CTP from CT (CTPCT) and from HT (CTP-HT). The composition characterization was carried out using fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TGDTA), ultimate analysis, and analysis of ash and air content. While the physical characteristics carried out in the form of distillation, as well as the QI test, softening point, coking value, and density. Based on the characterization results, HT has an aromatic group composition and has a higher QI value, coking value, and density than CT, but both have high ash content, so static sedimentation pre-treatment is necessary. The distillation results showed that the proportions of light fraction, middle fraction, heavy fraction, and CTP respectively for CT were 25.2%, 29.2%, 21.0% and 24.7%, and 15.9% for HT 27.2%, 23.0%, and 33.3%. CTP-HT has better anode precursor quality than CTPCT on the indicators of C/H ratio, QI and soft point, although the soft point value of CTP-HT still needs to be improved through bromination-dehydrobromination modification.