Pitch (resin)
mixture of aromatic organic compounds, black, tar-like, super viscous liquid
Pitch is a viscoelastic polymer which can be natural or manufactured, derived from petroleum, coal tar, or plants. Pitch produced from petroleum may be called bitumen or asphalt, while plant-derived pitch, a resin, is known as rosin in its solid form. Tar is sometimes used interchangeably with pitch but generally refers to less viscous substances, including some derived from coal production, such as coal tar, and some from plants, such as pine tar.
Production
Pitch is the principal product of coal tar, at least from the economic perspective. Coal tar is produced by thermolysis of coal, usually with the objective of obtaining coke, which is heavily used in the production of iron and steel. The thermolysis is conducted at >700 °C, yielding about 75% of coke, the rest being tar and gases. The tar is further processed, generating some chemicals, some fuel (for the thermolysis and distillation), and a soft pitch. Further treatment of the soft pitch yields pitch.
Pitch sometimes refers to materials obtained from conifers, such as naval stores. Somewhat like the processing of coal to coke and tar, tree exudates (rosins) are processed (solvent extraction or distillation) to obtain organic compounds.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pitch (resin)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.