Vol. 15, No. 10
INDUXTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
1022
Some of t h e Constituents of Coke-Oven Tar' By John M.Weiss and Charles R. Downs 50 EAST 41sT
ST.,NEWYORK,N. Y .
HERE is a rather popular idea that anything can be
T
found in coal tar, based on the assumption of the layman that coal-tar products are in general found in tar itself. Even the technical man is under some misapprehension, as Lunge in his book on "Coal Tar and Ammonia" lists some two hundred odd substances which various investigators have claimed to have found in tars from various sources, including such widely differing types as blast furnace, peat, lignite, and wood tars, as well as the various tars from bituminous coal. The type of tar produced in greatest quantity in the United States is coke-oven tar, so it seems that more exact information on its composition is desirable. The past exact knowledge is largely confined to the light oil below 200' C., the tar acids, and the tar bases, all of which are comparatively easy to separate and examine. The present communication is designed to throw light on the composition of the neutral oils boiling above 200" C., both as to the principal compounds present and their amount. Naturally, a study of the composition of all varieties of American coke-oven tars would be a very long investigation, but the composition of the average coke-oven tar is of interest to show what compounds are commercially available. The results can be accepted with the usual reservations which all conversant with the tar industry make because of the variations in the raw material of the industry. The work described comprises two phases-qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative test involved a larger sample than chemists are wont to use in their analyses. About 20,000 gallons of coal-tar distillate oil were handled, the tar acids and bases removed by extraction with caustic soda solution and dilute sulfuric acid, and the extracted oil was settled to remove the hydrocarbons crystallizable at normal temperature. This left about 10,000 gallons of neutral settled oil, which was distilled in the most refined type of vacuum column still. The distillate was collected in 100-gallon fractions, and these fractions were taken for the laboratory qualitative examination, first, to determine the existing compounds, and, second, to develop quantitative methods for estimation of these compounds. I n this paper the detailed results of the preliminary experiments are not given in full, but rather a skeleton of this phase of the work and the final general conclusions reached. METHYLNAPHTHALENE The separation of a-and &methylnaphthalenes was undertaken from the fractions of oil boiling between 235" and 247' C. After a number of fractional distillations and crystallizations, fairly pure samples of the two isomers were obtained. The /?-methylnaphthalene was crystallized fourteen times from alcohol and finally showed a solidifying point of 35.1" C. and an index of refraction at 40' C. of 1.6028. The melting points of successive crops of crystals had not become absolutely constant, but were nearly so. The a-methylnaphthalene was purified by recrystallizing the picrate and decomposing it. The melting point of the picrate was 123' C. and the index of refraction of the hydro1 Presented before t h e Division of Organic Chemistry a t t h e 65th Meeting of t h e American Chemical Society, N e w Haven, Conn , April 2 t o
7, 1923.
carbon a t 40°C. was 1.5882. There was therefore sufficient difference in the indices of refraction to use this constant as a method of estimation, if only the two isomers were present in a mixture. The constant is seriously depressed by the presence of paraffins in the oils which may amount to 4 per cent. All other impurities, however, can be removed and the paraffins estimated and their effect on the index of refraction calculated from the determined value for their index of refraction at 40" C. of about 1.4316. The writers did not go further into the properties of the monomethylnaphthalenes, as at this point they had sufficient data to enable them to make reasonably approximate estimates of the methylnaphthalene content of oils, and had concluded, further, that in general, with the products investigated, the proportions of a- to &methylnaphthalene were 1.45 to 1.00. The fractions containing the methylnaphthalenes were examined for trimethylcoumarones, with negative results. The fractions just above the monomethylnaphthalenes contained dimethylnaphthalenes in complex mixture. No attempt was made to separate the individual isomers, but they were estimated en masse by fractional distillation. DIPHENYL This body was estimated in several of the fractions by sulfonation at 40" to 50" C. with concentrated sulfuric acid and pouring the sulfonated mass into an excess of water. By extraction with ether, a crude diphenyl was obtained which was purified from admixed paraffin hydrocarbons by crystallization from alcohol. The richest fraction contained only 8 per cent of the crude material, and, based on the original tar, the amounts present were only around 0.1 per cent.
FLUORE NE The fractions in which fluorene should be present were nearly solid and the separated pressed solids were nearly pure material, merely requiring a wash with sulfuric acid and redistillation to remove small amounts of resinifying hydrocarbons. ACENAPHTHENE The fractions in this range acted very similarly to the fluorene fractions, and the isolation of acenaphthene was not difficult. The separated liquid oil from acenaphthene, as well as that from fluorene, was not examined very thoroughly, as on redistillation it gave considerably more of the parent hydrocarbon and the actual amounts of true liquid oil were materially lessened.
PHENANTHRENE The development of a direct method of analysis for phenanthrene in crude solids was a long and tedious task. The method finally perfected involved the formation of phenanthraquinone by oxidation in glacial acetic acid solution with iodic acid and the precipitation of the phenanthraquinone in weighable form by either 1,3,4-toluylenediamine or 1ethoxy-3,4-diaminobenzene. The details of this form the subject of a paper by Williams.2 In connection with the 2J. Am.
Chem. Soc., 43, 1911 (1921).
October, 1923
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
work pure phenanthrene was prepared and found to have a melting point of 99.6" C.
MISCELLANEOUS Kaphthalene, anthracene, and carbazol were separated and estimated in the usual way in the solids from their fractions. Diphenylene oxide was sought, with negative results. Above the anthracene oils are obtained the last oils'from the distillation of tar which can b.e roughly separated into yellow solids, greases, and resinous bodies-all of unknown composition and affording fields for further research work. The separation of these productb has been described by Bailey and B ~ e t t n e r . ~The yellow solids have been shown to contain chrysene and picene, and are a rather complicated mixture. As exemplifying the work, the results obtained on one of the still runs of higher boiling oil are shown graphically in the accompanying curve. Still temperatures are not given, as under a varying vacuum they are of very little value. In the greater portion of the range over 70 per cent of the compounds present were actually definitely determined. The percentages of acenaphthene and fluorene as determined are probably somewhat low and account partly for the drop of the total curve between Fractions 16 and 23. The fractions also vary in paraffin content from 2 to 5 per cent and from 5 to 7 per cent in unsaturated hydrocarbons, but as these have not been determined in all fractions in this set, they were omitted. If included they would bring a considerable portion of the total curve close to 100 per cent. The naphthalene and monomethylnaphthalene end is not characteristic as these had been largely removed by a previous distillation. COKSTITUENTS OF TAR With the data obtained in the preliminary work a new start was made. A mixture of four representative coke-oven tars with a specific gravity a t 15.5" C. of 1.186 and a benzene insoluble of 10.6 per cent was selected, and was run first in the plant and then in the laboratory, distillation losses being eliminated by equation as the work proceeded. The net final results are shown in the following table: CONSTITUENTS OF TAR
Per cent by Weight on D r y T a r
Light oil: Crude benzene and toluene.. ......................... Coumarone, indene, etc.. . . . . . . Xylenes, cumenes, and isomers.
0.3
................................
10.9
s in range of naphthalene and methyl-
es . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a-Monomethylnaphthalene, .......................... &Monomethylnaphthalene Dimethylnaphthalenes.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acenaphthene.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unidentified oil in range of acenaphthene.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fluorene.. , . Unidentified Anthracene oil: Phenanthrene. . . Anthracene. . . . . Carbazol and kin
T a r bases (mostly pyridine, picolines, lutidines, quinolines, a n d acridine). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yellow solids of pitch oils. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pitch greases. . . . . . . Pitch (460' F. melting point), ............................
1.7 1.0 1.5 3.4 1.4
part of the unidentified materials occurring in the oils of the anthracene range and the solids and greases just below the hard pitch. It is, of course, to be borne in mind that these results represent the composition of a mixture of several coke-oven /m
ti? $
8
90
80
70 60
50
a
f
40
h
20
P
30
/o
=
7
9
I/
13
15
17 19 2/ 23 25 f8ACTIOU NUUSER
27 29 3/
33
95
3 7 39 4/
A-NAPHTHALENE. B-MONOMETHYLNAPHTHALENES. C-DIPHENYL. D-DIM~~THYLNAPHTHALENES. E;-ACENAPHTHENE. F-FLUORENE. GPHENANTHRENE
H-ANTHRACENE. I-CARBAZOL
tars, and other mixtures or single varieties of these might show different percentages of materials, but these variations cannot be estimated a t present. The amounts given should not be taken as commercially recoverable, as it would not ordinarily be practicable to refine oils to the extent necessary to obtain all of any given constituent. The most notable feature of the results is the comparatively few compounds existing in the tar in appreciable amount, probably not over one-quarter of those popularly supposed to be there. The fact that phenanthrene is the second most abundant chemical in tar is also surprising and indicates the desirability of work to effect its chemical utilization. The higher boiling resins and greases are worthy of attention by future chemical investigators, as they are present in considerable quantity, and further amounts of the resins are left in the 460" F. melting point pitch, although this (containing from 50 to 60 per cent of free carbon and considerably harder than ordinary commercial pitches) is very close to pitch coke. The method of tar distillation was such as to minimize cracking, as shown by the fact that the 460" F. pitch was entirely fluid when drawn from the still. The writers believe that the results given are new and afford a better picture of the constituents of American coke-oven tar than has heretofore been available. They may serve to correct many misconceptions which have been prevalent in the past, and should indicate certain fields in which effort toward the isolation and utilization of coal-tar products is desirable.
1.0
A New E t h y l a t i n g Agent
2.3 0.6 44.7 -
TOTAL ...... 100.0
The general composition of the dist,illate portion of the tar is fairly well accounted for, the unidentified material in the lower ranges being inconsiderable (largely unsaturated hydrocarbons and paraffins or hydro-aromatics), the greater U. S. Patent 1,355,103 (October 5 , 1920).
1023
For some time the Mellon Institute of Industria iResearch, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa., in connection with the work of the Multiple Industrial Fellowship sustained by the Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Corp., of New York City, has been making a thorough investigation of the properties and uses of diethyl sulfate as a general ethylating agent. A. R. Cade, an industrial fellow of the institute, under whom the greater part of this work has been carried out, has published recently a report of the findings of this investigation, which report shows diethyl sulfate to be a most satisfactory general reagent for introducing ethyl groups into organic compounds. Mellon Institute will be pleased to furnish samples of this material to those interested, and Mr. Cade will correspond gladly with any one who desires further information upon this subject. Reprints of the article referred to may be obtained by writing to Mr. Cade a t the institute.
