No abstract

No abstract

Gel permeation chromatography has been applied to the fractionation of some coal carbonization and related liquids. This technique permits the separation of these complicated mixtures into aromatic, aliphatic, and tar acid components. Operation at room temperature makes it possible to fractionate these materials without using temperatures where cracking or polymerization may occur.With tetrahydrofuran (THF) as a sample vehicle, the distillation fraction boiling above 350 °C, which is usually termed pitch and discarded prior to conventional analysis, may be analyzed and included in the sample assay. The elution curves derived permit the calculation of percentage composition.Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) was first mentioned in the literature by Moore in 1964 (/). A comprehensive historical review was published by Cazes (2, 3) in 1966. This technique has since become an accepted method for the determination of molecular weight distribution of polymers and for the fractionation of medium and high molecular weight materials (2). This analytical tool is still somewhat limited to use in the area of polymer sciences and biochemistry. Very few articles have appeared which apply this technique to coal, coal tar, and petroleum products. Hendrickson and Moore (4) first described the elution behavior of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Altgelt (J) has studied the molecular weight distribution of asphaltenes by GPC and infrared spectroscopy. Edstrom and Petro (6) reported that aromatic hydrocarbons were fractionated by GPC and also