Process for production of carbon artifact feedstocks

Claim 1

A process for preparing a feedstock suitable for carbon fiber production comprising: (1) treating a cat cracker bottom which boils in the range from about 100° C. to about 550° C. to remove from about 10% to about 90% by weight of the fractions present in said cat cracker bottom which boil below about 400° C.; (2) adding a dealkylation catalyst in amounts ranging from about 0.1 weight percent to about 1.0 weight percent to said treated cat cracker bottom of step 1, said dealkylation catalyst being selected from the group consisting of Lewis acid, Lewis acid salts and heavy metal halides; (3) heating said mixture from step 2 above at temperatures ranging from about 350° C. to about 410° C. for times ranging from about 1/4 to about 5 hours; (4) vacuum stripping the resultant mixture from step 3 at temperatures in the range from about 300° C. to about 370° C., at pressures ranging from about 1.0 to about 3 mm of Hg to remove at least a portion of the aromatic oils present in said catalytic heat soaked pitch; (5) adding an organic fluxing liquid to said vacuum stripped pitch to provide a fluid pitch containing insoluble solids suspended therein, said organic fluxing liquid being employed in the range from about 0.5 to about 3 parts by weight of liquid per part of pitch; (6) filtering said pitch from step 5 to separate said solids; (7) treating said separated fluid pitch from step 6 with an antisolvent selected from the group consisting of aromatic and alkyl substituted aromatic hydrocarbons, cyclic ethers and mixtures thereof in an amount sufficient to provide a solvent insoluble fraction which is capable of being thermally converted into a deformable pitch containing greater than 75% of an optically anisotropic phase; and (8) separating said solvent insoluble fraction whereby a pitch suitable for carbon fiber production is obtained.