Synthesis of Mesophase Pitch from Aromatic-Rich Fluid Catalytic Cracking Slurry: Key Advantages

This study presents FCC-BL, a novel material that can be converted into the mesophase pitch, characterized by a wide-area streamlined optical texture and large domain texture, via the direct thermal polycondensation under optimized reaction conditions. It has an ordered microcrystalline structure and great yield overcoming the difficulty of synthesizing mesophase pitch with a good optical texture in the traditional FCC slurry; Mesophase pitch with a specific anisotropic structure is produced by a continuous screening of reaction conditions and thermal polycondensation, and its properties and structure are characterized and analyzed using the polarizing microscope, FTIR, ¹H NMR, and XRD. The experimental results reveal that mesophase pitch with the optimal performance is obtained at a temperature of 420°C, a pressure of 2 MPa, and a reaction time of 6 h. The resulting mesophase pitch product exhibits a streamlined texture in a large watershed, with a softening point at only 233°C and low impurity content, that makes the material highly suitable for the production of carbon fibers.