Other Carbon Products

Carbon black from oil is the main competition for the product from coal, which is used in filters. Carbon for electrodes is primarily made from petroleum coke, although pitch coke is used in Germany for this product. The pitch binder used for electrodes and other carbon products is almost always a selected coal tar pitch. 

Other Carbon Products Pitch may be pulverized as a fuel or for other commercial purposes in the former case the unit system of burning is generahy employed, and the same eqiiipment is used as described tor coal. Grinding characteristics vaiy with the melting point, which may be anywhere from 50 to 175°C. 

Chemical and plastic behavior of the carbonaceous mesophase, which is the liquid crystalline phase where the microstructure of coke and many other carbon products is established... 

Pitch is a "pseudo solution" of a wide variety of different generic classes of hydrocarbons ranging from paraffins at one extreme to very highly aromatic species at the other. By using the Theory of Solubility for Non-Electrolytes, specific fractions can be isolated from a pitch by properly selecting a solvent system and extraction conditions. "Tailored" precursors for carbon fiber and other carbon products, such as carbon/carbon matrices and bulk graphites, can thus be obtained. The technique of extraction, the characteristics of different precursors, and the structure and properties of carbon fiber and composites made from solvent extracted precursors will be discussed. 

Several other carbon products are now becoming established in the plastics industry. Weidmann Plastics Technology is manufacturing the bipolar plates for fuel cells by injection-compression moulding of thermoplastics filled with over 80% of graphite. A single fuel cell requires about a thousand bipolar plates. 

As mentioned above, only the minerals diamond and natural graphite are found in nature. All other carbon products are man-made and derive from carbonaceous precursors. These synthetic products eu e manufactured by a number of processes summarized inTable 1.2. Each process will be reviewed in the relevant chapters. 

Rgure 6.7. Oxidation rate of vitreous carbon and other carbon products.l l... 

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