Fractionation of a coal tar pitch by ultra-filtration, and characterization by size exclusion chromatography, UV-fluorescence and laser desorption-mass spectroscopy

Ultra-filtration (UF) provides a new way of generating narrow bands of sample in the fractionation of coal and petroleum-derived liquids. It allows larger quantities of high-mass fractions to be recovered, making more detailed investigations possible, through the use of techniques requiring larger amounts of sample. In this work, UF-separated fractions have been used to study molecular mass distributions of a coal tar pitch, used as laboratory standard. The pitch was fractionated by solvent solubility into three fractions. These were further fractionated by ultra-filtration, using membranes specific to protein molecular sizes classed as “1 kDa”, “5 kDa”, “10 kDa” and “100 kDa”. Planar chromatography was used as a tertiary fractionation method, to sub-divide the UF-fractions. The various fractions were examined by size exclusion chromatography (SEC), UV-fluorescence spectroscopy and laser desorption-mass spectrometry (LD-MS). There was good agreement between mass estimates based on SEC and LD-MS of the smaller UF-fractions, with evidence for the presence of material with molecular masses ranging between 800 and 10,000 u. Examining the largest UF fractions of the pitch-pyridine-insoluble sample also gave clear evidence for material with molecular masses above 10,000 u. Taken together, however, the LD-MS data showed progressively diminishing differences, as the sizes of the UF membranes, and the likely molecular masses of the sample fractions, increased. One likely explanation is incomplete sampling during the laser desorption procedure. The evidence suggests that the upper mass limit detectable for these and similar samples by LD-MS has been reached. Despite these reservations, LD-MS appears as the best method to date, for investigating the mass ranges of samples derived from coal tar pitch and heavy petroleum fractions.