Optimization of phenolic compounds extraction procedure from coal tar

Abstract

Coal tar is one of the fractions of petroleum distillation process that contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and phenolic compounds. The aim of this work was to extract only phenolic compounds and some heterocyclic compounds like Antraquinone from coal tar without PAH. The majority of phenols have negative effect on human’s health because of chemical structure that leads to low metabolic degradation level and high harmful effect. Enormous amount of phenols and PAH contain railway sleepers impregnated with creosote. Developing extraction method with sodium hydroxide solution makes easier the whole extraction process from many solid or liquid matrices. This extraction method can be widely used to extract phenols from coal tar, railway sleepers and soil as well. The extraction procedure was performed in several steps: (I) solvent extraction of phenols using sodium hydroxide solution and (II) cleaning of the obtained extract using solid phase extraction. This presentation discusses the optimization of phenolic compounds extraction procedure and the quality of this process using different concentration of sodium hydroxide as well as the importance of this process improving quality of oil’s products.