Title: petroleum coke
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - petroleum coke
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.P04522
Status: current

Definition
A carbonization product of high-boiling hydrocarbon fractions obtained in petroleum processing (heavy residues). It is the general term for all special petroleum coke products such as green, calcined and needle petroleum coke.

Note
High-boiling hydrocarbon fractions (heavy residues) used as feedstock for petroleum coke are residues from distillation (atmospheric pressure, vacuum) or cracking (e.g. thermal, catalytic, steam-based) processes. The nature of feedstock has a decisive influence on the graphitizability of the calcined coke.

Related Terms
- calcined coke: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C00774
- carbonization: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C00840
- coke: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01142
- cracking: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/C01387
- green: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/G02697
- needle: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/N04095

Source
- PAC, 1995, 67, 473. 'Recommended terminology for the description of carbon as a solid (IUPAC Recommendations 1995)' on page 499 (https://doi.org/10.1351/pac199567030473)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04522/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04522/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/P04522/xml

Citation: Citation: 'petroleum 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.P04522
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-04-19T04:18:04+00:00