Preparation and carbonization behavior of cinnamaldehyde modified coal tar pitch

In this paper, coal tar pitch (CTP) was modified with cinnamaldehyde (CMA) in the presence of p-toluene sulfonic acid. The parent CTP and CMA modified CTP were characterized by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, elemental analysis and scanning electron microscopy. Carbonization behaviors of CMA modified CTPs were studied by thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction techniques. The results show that the carbonization behaviors of parent CTP and CMA modified CTPs are much different. The modification of CTP with CMA results in an increase in carbonization yield by 3.46–5.08% when 100 g CTP was modified with 5–15 ml of CMA. During the carbonization process, methyl and methylene groups of the CMA modified CTP gradually disappear while increasing temperature and its chemical structures change greatly when the temperature is higher than 400 °C. In addition, the modification with CMA is beneficial for increasing graphitizability of CTP.