Title: coal-derived pitch coke
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - coal-derived pitch coke
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.C01118
Status: current

Definition
The primary industrial solid carbonization product obtained from coal tar pitch mainly produced in chamber or delayed coking processes.

Note
Coal-derived pitchcoke, although it exhibits a pregraphitic microstructure, has often a lower graphitizability than petroleum coke. Fractions of coal tar pitches (obtained by extraction or filtration) may form cokes with needle-like structures and have an improved graphitizability. The usually lower graphitizability compared to petroleum coke is due to an inhibition of mesophase growth because of chemical and physical differences of the cokes.

Related Terms
- carbonization: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C00840
- coal tar pitch: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01121
- cokes: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01142
- delayed coking processes: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/D01578
- extraction: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/E02301
- filtration: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/F02388
- inhibition: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/I03034
- mesophase: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/M03849
- petroleum coke: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04522
- pitch: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/P04677

Source
- PAC, 1995, 67, 473. 'Recommended terminology for the description of carbon as a solid (IUPAC Recommendations 1995)' on page 485 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199567030473)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01118/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01118/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/C01118/xml

Citation: Citation: 'coal-derived pitch coke' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.C01118
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Accessed: 2026-04-19T02:48:25+00:00