The commonly used term for a special type of
coke with extremely high graphitizability resulting from a strong preferred parallel orientation
of its turbostratic layer structure and a particular physical shape of the grains.
Note:
Needle
coke is derived mainly from clean (i.e. lacking hetero atoms and solids) and highly aromatic
(i.e. several condensed rings per
cluster) feedstocks with a very low concentration of insolubles. Upon
solidification a material with a distinctive streaked or flow-like macroscopic appearance is produced.
Upon grinding the
coke breaks up first into macroscopic needles and then, after further grinding, into microplatelets.
Sometimes the word '
acicular' is used as a synonym for needle-like.
Source:
PAC, 1995, 67, 473
(Recommended terminology for the description of carbon as a solid (IUPAC Recommendations
1995))
on page 497
Cite as:
IUPAC. Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. (the "Gold Book"). Compiled by
A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford (1997).
XML on-line corrected version: http://goldbook.iupac.org (2006-) created by M. Nic,
J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN 0-9678550-9-8.
https://doi.org/10.1351/goldbook.
