Manufacture of High Density Graphite Using Coal Tar Pitch

Graphite has hexagonal closed packing structure with two bonding characteristics; (1) van der waals bonding between c axis, and (2) covalent bonding in the a and b axis. The weak van der waals bonds cause self-lubricant property, and the strong covalent bonds cause excellent electric and thermal conductivity. Furthermore, graphite is chemically very inert because of the material composed of only carbon elements. Thus, graphite is very useful for mechanical sealing materials. However, Graphite have porous microstructure because starting materials of graphite produce many volatile during the manufacturing processes. This causes low density of graphite, which is unsuitable for the mechanical sealing materials. Thus, further impregnation process is generally needed to enhance the graphite density. In this work, high density graphite is prepared with the principle of densification when coke and pitch binder, prepared from thermal treatment of coal tar pitch, become dehydrogenation during graphitization or carbonization.

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